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VERNAL, Utah (AP) -- A state liquor store was caught selling alcohol to a minor without asking for identification.
Vernal police included the liquor store as part of a December sting on area businesses. Seven other businesses also sold alcohol to minors.
Vernal police and city council members say they're particularly furious with the state-run store, which sold alcohol to an 18-year-old.
"I find the irony of this amusing because the state moved a whole line of alcohol products out of the grocery stores and into the state liquor agencies so they'd be more secure, so the kids would be less likely to get into the malt liquor things," said council member Jo Ann Cowan. "Then a 16-year-old kid can walk into there and buy it where if he tried to buy from a grocery store, he would have been ID'd at either Smiths or Jubilee or Wal-Mart. But he goes to the state liquor store and he can get it. That's surely not what the legislature intended."
State lawmakers banned the sale of flavored malt beverages from grocery stores and convenience stores earlier this year because they thought they'd be harder to obtain if they were only sold in liquor stores. Utah is the only state in the country with such a ban in place.
However, state liquor stores have no special equipment to verify a customer's age and not everyone who goes into a store is required to present identification. The state also has no special equipment to verify that an identification card is valid.
During stings, police send minors in to buy alcohol. When asked to present identification, the minors present their real driver's license.
In Utah, a minor's drivers licenses states clearly: "Under 21 until (date)" and is formatted vertically rather than horizontally.
"It's actually written right on the license," said Vernal Police Chief Gary Jensen. "So if you are not a mathematician, it's not tough to look at that little inscription on the drivers license to see that these kids were too young."
Jensen said the state liquor store also violated its own policy because the clerk who sold the alcohol was not wearing a name tag.
"I was a little disappointed. They didn't seem to be too uptight about it," he said. "There is an irony here. If you are a person selling alcohol in any one of these convenience stores, by UDABC rules you have to have a name tag. In Vernal, they opted themselves out of that in their store."
The UDABC director and representatives from the other businesses that sold alcohol to minors are scheduled to describe what efforts they'll make to end underage sales when the council meets Wednesday.
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Information from: Vernal Express
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
