By Neil Farrell~
County and State law enforcement officials issued a slew of citations to minors in possession of alcohol at this year’s Mid-State Fair, and one long-time hooch vendor was cited for selling to minors, the Sheriff’s Department announced.
Working in conjunction with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control or ABC, the Sheriff’s Alcohol Compliance Team or ACT, conducted alcohol compliance operations at the California Mid-State Fair throughout the fair’s run, July 20-31.
They sent one under-aged decoy around to the fair’s many beer, wine and alcohol booths trying to purchase booze.
The “National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984,” set the U.S. legal drinking age at 21 or older, and prior to that, each state set its own legal age limit. The Act threatened to withhold revenues from any state that refused to comply.
And with the large number of alcohol vendors selling at the fair, there were plenty of opportunities to catch someone breaking the law.
However, just one alcohol vendor, Bubba’s Bad BBQ, was cited for allegedly selling to the decoy. Bubba’s has a huge saloon-like beer and wine booth and gardens on the north end of the fair by the Headliner Stage and cooks and sells barbecue fare as well.
In such cases, the actual person who sold the alcohol gets cited and is prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office. Bubba’s BBQ will be turned over to ABC for possible administrative penalties as well.
While just one booze booth was cited, a lot of kids were caught allegedly with booze. Some 31 arrests/citations were issued for minors in possession of alcohol, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Four adults were cited for allegedly furnishing alcohol to minors, added the Sheriff’s Office.
And of course there were three kids who got caught trying to buy booze as well, using a fake ID.
“In all, a total of 37 persons were arrested/cited by ACT officers for alcohol related violations at the Mid-State Fair.”
The sting operations were done using a grant from ABC and the Sheriff’s Office vows to continue the practice, so long as the grant monies keep coming in.
Really, they are trying to save kids from themselves. “Statistics have shown that young people under 21 have a higher rate of drunken driving fatalities than the general adult population,” the news release said.
This sort of thing has been going on for a long, long time. “Minor decoy operations have been conducted by local law enforcement throughout the state since the 1980s. When the program first began, the violation rate of retail establishments selling to minors was as high as 40%-50%.
“When conducted on a routine basis, the rate has dropped in some jurisdictions to as low as 10% or less.”
The State Supreme Court, in 1994, ruled that such sting operations were legal, “to ensure that licensees are complying with the law.”
