Six Osage County businesses were caught selling alcohol to underage customers Thursday in an undercover sting operation conducted by the Osage County Sheriff’s Department along with Missouri Alcohol and Tobacco Control and Missouri Department of Revenue.
An undercover decoy visited 10 locations in the Linn, Westphalia and Freeburg areas, Osage County Sheriff Mike Bonham said in a news release.
The decoy was able to purchase alcohol at six locations, including Dave’s Pizza, Casey’s, Casper’s, BreakTime and two Eagle Stop locations.
Eagle Stop in Linn, El Carnival, BJ’s Restaurant and Thriftway all refused to sell alcohol to the underage agent.
“None of the businesses that sold to the decoy asked for an ID,” Bonham said.
He said these sting operations typically occur without notice, targeting randomly selected locations in different counties. The undercover decoys posing as customers are usually underage volunteers recruited from local colleges or criminal justice programs.
Aside from routine checks, Bonham said, if the Osage County Sheriff’s Department gets a referral from a local police department or credible complaints of underage sales at a certain business, they will send in “a whole detail” consisting of ATC investigators, Department of Motor Vehicles personnel and deputies.
Businesses charged with underage sales face civil penalties per violation, with fines for a “first-time offense,” which means the business has had five years of clean history without being charged for underage sales by the ATC, Bonham said.
In addition, employees or licensees who sell to minors can be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor.
The ATC increases its underage drinking enforcement during certain periods in the year, such as the fall months for the beginning of the school year, as well as April, which is Alcohol Awareness Month and coincides with high school prom and graduation season, Bonham said.
He added, “A 60 percent failure rate is unacceptable.”
Bonham encourages local businesses to have employees go through the State of Missouri Alcohol Responsibility Training (SMART) Online Server Training Program, which is a free, online interactive training program operated by the University of Missouri Wellness Resource Center. The program educates servers of alcoholic beverages about their legal obligations in the sale of alcohol.
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September 26, 2020 at 12:05PM
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