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Menlo Park police officers and California Alcoholic Beverage Control agents made five arrests on Oct. 15 for furnishing alcohol to minors as part of the Decoy Shoulder Tap Operation.
The program targets adults who purchase alcohol for people under 21 years of age, according to a statement from the Menlo Park Police Department.
“Under the program, a minor under the direct supervision of a peace officer will stand outside a liquor or convenience store and ask patrons to buy them alcohol,” the release said. “The minor indicates in some way he or she is underage and cannot purchase the alcohol.”
If the adult agrees to purchase alcohol for the minor, they’re arrested and cited for furnishing alcohol to the minor, for which the penalty is a minimum $1,000 fine and 24 hours of community service.
“The program is intended to reduce the availability of alcohol to minors,” police said. “Statistics show they generally have a higher rate of drunk driving crashes than adults. Studies also show that when youth are able to access alcohol, the chance of criminal activities increase.”
Why should we believe this report? There is no documentation of the people or stores involved.
I am not surprised that they do not identify the people arrested, this is a “Shoulder Tap” busted which I believe means that a minor waits outside of a store that sells alcohol and asks people entering the store to buy them alcohol. The store and the clerk are not at fault because they are selling to an adult who would then give the alcohol to the minor. As people are innocent until convicted they would not identify the person who was cited for buying the alcohol.
In cases where an establishment was cited for directly selling alcohol to a minor I think the establishment, not the individual, should be identified in the article.
Another wonderfully uninformative “story” from the Almanac.
Might as well say six year old stubbed his toe on the curb.
Doesn’t the adult actually have to buy the alcohol and give it to the minor? Arresting the adult just because they agree without a follow thru action hopefully doesn’t hold up in court. Let’s say I take the money go in and buy the kid a case of water to teach him a lesson. In a drug bust for purchase I thought there has to be an exchange for product.
Observer,
I agree that they would actually have buy and deliver the alcohol. My guess is that this is a deficiency in the reporting. I suppose if they take the money and buy something else or just keep it they could be guilty of something else but not supplying alcohol to a minor.