NE: State Patrol says trickery not used in compliance checks
Patrol says minors are told to dress normally when testing to see if businesses will sell them alcohol
By Jeff Bahr
June 10, 2017
Some people believe law enforcement uses subterfuge in testing to see whether businesses sell alcohol to minors.
In March, five of 84 businesses visited in Hall County failed a compliance check. Those five businesses sold alcohol to someone younger than 21 years old. The minor was sent in by law enforcement to see if each business complies with the law.
When the story about five businesses failing the test appeared in The Independent, one man made this comment online:
“I have seen them use girls about 20 years old put makeup on them, dress them up and make them look in their forties (and) go in and buy beer. It’s entrapment.”
The State Patrol does not try to mislead businesses by using people who don’t appear to be their real age, says Lt. Brent Bockstadter of the Grand Island-based Troop C.
In doing alcohol compliance checks, the Patrol works with people who are 18 to 20 years old. When those people try to buy alcohol on law enforcement’s behalf, they use their actual IDs.
The State Patrol directs them to dress as they normally would, Bockstadter said.
“They are what they are. We just want them to be normal,” he said.
Young people who help with compliance checks normally do the job for a couple of years, Bockstadter said.
Compliance checks are done at convenience stores, liquor stores, restaurants and bars.
The Nebraska State Patrol is the key enforcement arm of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. The commission also relies on local law enforcement, such as the Grand Island Police Department and the Hall County Sheriff’s Department. The latter sometimes heads up compliance checks.
How old the individual looks isn’t really much of an issue, said Grand Island Police Capt. Jim Duering.
Businesses should be checking a person’s ID “if there’s a question at all,” Duering said.
Signs in many liquor stores say the store will check if they believe the person is younger than 40, Duering said.
“It sometimes agitates me when I don’t get checked anymore. But it is what it is,” joked Duering, who is over 40.
According to the State Patrol, the checks are done to make sure businesses are complying with the state’s alcohol laws and to decrease youth access to alcohol.
The State Patrol also does tobacco compliance checks. To legally purchase tobacco in Nebraska, you have to be 18.
In doing tobacco checks, “we target that population just a couple years under that target 18 mark,” Bockstadter said.
When a business fails an alcohol compliance check, a report is sent to the Liquor Control Commission.
“Those are looked at by the assistant attorney general assigned to the commission,” said Hobert Rupe, executive director of the Liquor Control Commission.
If she feels the law has been violated, she will file an administrative citation against the holder of the liquor license. The license holder can request a hearing or plead guilty.
“Normally you’re looking at a 10- to 20-day suspension for a first failed attempt and mandatory server training,” Rupe said.
For the server training, a business would have to take one of the commission’s approved server trainings. Those sessions tell people “how to properly check for IDs, how to recognize signs of impairment, how to cut somebody off if you need to,” Rupe said.
If a business fails a second compliance check within four years, it will have to close for two days and have its liquor license suspended 20 days.