What If the Cops Threw a Sting and No Minors Showed Up?

According to the Statesman's Blotter (a cool feature over on their site) the Travis County Sheriff's Office, in cooperation with TABC, set up a sting operation in hopes of busting minors. And for the first time in the history of said operations (a one year-old program), no minors were busted. Sheriff's department officials say this proves the stings are working to curb underage drinking. Sure it is. Whatever helps you ~~eat doughnuts~~ sleep at night. More likely, kids are just getting hip to the Sheriff's jive and going elsewhere. Hey, it's what we did as kids. (Of course, none of our statements are meant to condone underage drinking. And, in fact, we think underage binge drinking has become quite a scourge. Check out this 2002 program from the Diane Rehm show about college kids and booze if you don't believe us.)

Officials operated the sting at liquor and convenience stores on the west side of town. The report in the Statesman says 24 manpower hours were spent on this operation. About as many as were seemingly put into the media buy for the Click It or Ticket campaign.

*Image (c) the20d's on Flickr*

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By matthewodam in News on May 30, 2006 2:54 PM 0 Comments

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Kat

As someone who has worked as a gas station attendant, a waitress, and now a wine seller, I can tell you the stings and all the strict laws are working, but not to keep underage kids from drinking. They work to keep people on the selling side so scared of breaking the law that they won't take any kind of excuse for someone not showing i.d. Those TABC classes scare the daylights out of any sane person, as it's basically the fault of the bartender, etc... if some drunk causes an accident or some kid buys liquor. Very few professionals are willing to take risks these days, and kids know it, so they just don't try as much. They just go make friends with the kid(s) whose mom will buy them booze.