Three South Lake Tahoe businesses sell alcohol to minors during sting

Submitted by paula on Tue, 05/05/2015 - 7:51pm

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department cited three clerks for selling alcohol to minors during a minor decoy operation on Saturday, May 2.

Clerks at Beverages and More (BevMo), CVS in Bijou, and Safeway all sold the minor alcohol. One unidentified store did not sell the decoy alcohol.

A 24-year-old employee at BevMo, a 21-year-old employee at Safeway and a 35-year-old employee at CVS were all cited. At each store, the employees involved were women.

They face a minimum fine of $250, and/or 24 to 32 hours of community service for a first violation. Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) will take administrative action against each beverage license of each business. That may include a fine, a suspension of the license, or the permanent revocation of the license.

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department is conducting the compliance checks to reduce the availability of alcohol to minors. Statistics have shown that young people under the age of 21 have a higher rate of drunken driving fatalities than the general adult population.

A great opportunity for businesses an ABC license is coming up in South Lake Tahoe. All are invited to bring their employees to a free seminar presented by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) on Thursday, May 28 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Minor Decoy operations have been conducted by local law enforcement throughout the state since the 1980’s. When the program first began, the violation rate of retail establishments selling to minors was as high as 40 to 50 percent. When conducted on a routine basis, the rate has dropped in some cities as low as 10 percent or even below.

In 1994, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that use of underage decoys is a valid tool of law enforcement to ensure that licensees are complying with the law.

This project is part of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s Minor Decoy / Shoulder Tap Grant Project, funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Names of those charges were not released.