Watching for ‘minor’ offenses

NOTEBOOK

I felt strange and out of place sitting in a van with two police

officers and an investigator with the state’s department of alcoholic

beverage control.

They held their breaths as they watched an 18-year-old police

cadet walk into a liquor store. We were all waiting to see if she

would come out of the store with a six-pack of beer in her hands.

She didn’t. With disappointment we went to the next liquor store.

We did that a total of 18 times last Thursday. It was part of an

“under 21” decoy operation that the police department conducts about

once a month to find out if liquor stores are dutifully checking IDs.

The liquor stores are picked at random, a wire is placed on an

underage cadet who is then sent in.

If the store clerk sends her packing they pass, and the entourage

moves on. For doing the job right the store owners get a letter in

the mail thanking them for their compliance and cooperation.

“We kind of pat them on the back for doing a good job,” Huntington

Beach Police Det. Erik Krause said.

Anyone who saw 18-year-old Julia would instantly know that she

isn’t old enough to buy beer. If her young appearance wasn’t a

giveaway then the gray hooded Ocean View High School sweatshirt that

she was wearing should have been.

“Do you have ID?”

That was the first thing that most store clerks asked when Julia

plopped the six-pack of Budweiser on the store counter.

“Yeah,” she’d say as she took it out of her pocket and handed it

to them.

“You’re not 21, come back when you are.”

That’s what a couple of the clerk’s said. It’s just what they are

supposed to do.

Some of the clerk’s yelled at Julia and waved their fingers at her

while telling her not to come back. One clerk asked her why she

wanted beer and another told her to bring a California ID with her

next time.

If someone makes the mistake of selling the beer to Julia, the

officers walk into the store, close it down and cite the clerk.

Out of 18 stores, only one sold Julia the beer. It was the very

last store that the detectives decided to hit before calling it a

night.

As the police officers walked out of the van and made their way

toward the store entrance, the clerk knew he was in trouble. He tried

to not show any emotion, but he knew he was in for it. The store

owner was going to get a fine and he was probably going to lose his

job.

It almost looked like no one would break the law that night.

Krause was surprised with the results.

“This is the lowest we’ve ever gotten,” he said of the one

citation.

Even stores that had been cited before, apparently learned their

lesson and didn’t sell her any liquor.

There were a couple of close calls that got us all excited. A

clerk began to ring up a sale before realizing that Julia was

underage. The clerk took the bag away and Julia walked out of the

store empty handed.

Julia quickly got into her role and began to get frustrated after

she walked out of each store empty handed.

“From what everyone said I thought they would sell to me,” she

said.

When she finally triumphed and succeeded in buying the beer, it

wasn’t a good thing, but it’s what the detectives were waiting for.

While the decoy program may seem trivial, it’s a program that

works, police said. Store owners are scared that they’ll be fined so

they ask for ID. Julia’s low success rate shows that the program is

working, said Sgt. Gray Dove.

“It’s a golf game the lowest score wins,” Krause said.

So I sat there in the unmarked van, somewhere I never thought I’d

be, with police detectives during an undercover operation. Imagine,

me, I thought, waiting with anticipation to bust someone?!

But I felt good when the officers cited the store clerk -- it felt

right. This guy sold beer to a girl who was obviously underage. He

was wrong to do it and while it isn’t murder, it’s still wrong.