Arkansas Blog

That same 19-year-old "operative" on that same evening stopped into Boulevard Wine and Spirits on Maumelle Boulevard (about 1.5 miles east of Cheers), where the only-slightly-older-than-21-year-old clerk was smart/lucky enough to check his ID. At that point the fellow identified himself as being on official ABC business and handed over a card noting his presence and the store's proper following of procedure.

The only food available at Boulevard is chips/candy bars/Beer Nuts/etc. and there were no reports that he tried to get any free or at a discount.

Arkansas Beverage Control personnel are doing many strange things these days, including sending racist email messages about Barack Obama on state computers during office hours. Arkansas law provides that it shall be unlawful for any public servant to use any office or room furnished at public expense to distribute any letters, circulars, or other campaign materials unless such office or room is regularly used by members of the public for such purposes without regard to political affiliation, and it shall further be unlawful for any public servant to use for campaign purposes any item of personal property provided with public funds. In this instance, although it might have been damaging to Senator Obama, it did not appear to be pro-McCain, just ignorant and disappointing that our state government condones such representations.

ARK. BLOG: More details welcome at max@arktimes.com

The ABC operatives are"carefully screened" and are "children of law enforcement officers or well known by the ABC". How then was it that the operative had a phony address if he was carefully screened? If he was carefully screened, did the ABC ask for a current drivers liscense. Without one, how could the operative legally drive while doing his job? Sounds to me like the ABC has a good ole boy program for giving $10 per hour to children of law enforcement officers or persons well known to the ABC who were neither carefully screened or doing their job.

Thank God in heaven our crack law enforcement team out here in Maumelle is watching that damn underage drinking. You know what they say: give a kid a cocktail and he'll want...another cocktail.

Where have you been, Max? The ABC does whatever it likes, with impunity. Our whole system of regulation of liquor-selling and liquor-serving is the most archaic, hypocritical system in the state. First, it's based on the stipulation that alcohol is a vice (although legal to sell and heavily taxes.)

Next it is operated in a way that forces owners to pretend that their open place of business selling a legal product is a private club made up of members who share a hobby - a hobby that isn't simply having a drink. In order to have a private club an operator must get a petition of citizens avowing they gather to talk about ducks or cars, etc. There are a limited number of "liquor licenses" so that operators have to buy a license from a defunct owner and pay past-due state taxes on it in order to possess one.

There's a huge white lie regulation that bars or liquot stores must be a certain distance from churches and schools. There are "wet" and "dry" counties or townships within counties. All of it is a nonsensical, Rube Goldberg concoction of regulations meant to discourage the whole business sector while obtaining the most punitive of taxes from it.

But most strangely of all, all operators of liquor sales and liquor serving must buy their goods from monopolies. Liquor sales are a monopoly. All of it is bought from several distributors in Little Rock, no exceptions. Beer wholesalers have monopolies in regional territories, no exceptions and no competition. Beer and liquor vendors, already protected by this monopoly, take cash only. Ever heard the expression "cash on the barrelhead?" All these draconian, monopolistic vending regulations have one glaring exception. Suddenly, for the first time since 1836, it is ok for WalMart to sell liquor at a Sam's Club under a completely different set of rules than all other liquor store owners in Arkansas and also not have to buy their stock from said monopolies.

Sending an underage plant to entrap a liquor store or bar owner is just about the least of it, although it promulgates the idea that every day, someone is trying to make a buck by selling alcohol to a minor. This is the LAST thing any liquor store owner or bar owner wants to happen. Any day now, a case will be won in Arkansas establishing "dram shop" liability making the person who sold the alcohol responsible for the actions of the customer who bought the liquor and harmed him or herself or others. It's all a mess.

I think a better use of the taxpayers' $300,000 grant money would be to hand the clerk or bartender the $10 for checking the ID and preventing the sale. Once word got around that you might get a bonus for checking ID's, even the convenience store clerks might start doing it, although it still wouldn't be as lucrative as the $20 twelve pack for teens program, where the clerk keeps the change from a twenty and the teens get their cold 12pk with no hassle.

Oops. I was ranting so hard I didn't conclude. Years ago I was involved in ownership of a bar. These comments reflect my personal experience.

There also have been some real questions about granting licenses to package stores in newly wet Marion County over which I expected more investigation from journalists. The latest scuttlebutt is, though, denying that he had anything to do with getting a license approved closer to the Boone county line, our state rep ended up being the realtor involved in the property sold to the package store in question. http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/215414/

Most Police Dept's. have been using underage "Buyers" for sting operations for years. Nothing new here. Around 1984 I worked a second job at a U-Totem in Phx., Az. I was hit by the sting, but I asked the kid for ID too, and he gave me a fake ID with a "of age" birthdate on it. In Phx., the store policy was to write down the buyers ID in a Log Book. I did. Ten seconds after the kid left in came the police. The cop who did all the talking told me I sold to an underage person and I was in trouble. I showed him the ID Log and he left, returning with the kid. The kid denied showing me any ID so the cops searched him and the car he drove. They found the ID matching the last entry in the Log Book. Covered my Arse good, did I! The kid got in a lot of crap about it, and after that I heard they have to go through training that explains the penalties for falsifying the actions of the sting operations before the kids can participate. I guess this kid got several people busted for selling booze to a minor. I wouldn't put it past some of these small towns to try the same kind of crap just to gain revenue. Greedy little Basty Nastards.

Never thought about them getting a grant to do this, but I've known the ABC has been doing this teen-baiting for years. And guess what...there is a group of Arkansas teenagers behind paid to be carted all around Arkansas to bait store owners into selling cigarettes to minors. A friend of my daughters did it for a few months, made good money and got the joy of trying to trick adults. She's still thrilled about being a part of a sting operation...secret spy stuff and all. Her present attitude is that all adults are bad.....you just have to try to trick and trap them. What a lovely lesson she's learned!

My daughter's friend looks like the poster child for 15 years old, so she fooled no one and never could talk an adult into selling her cigarettes. Though I never personally saw one, I'm told the ABC finds teenagers who look 27 to send into bars and stores to try and buy hooch of some kind. Is this really what anyone should be doing with teenagers? Even in my favorite old porno movie, Papa's Pig-tailed Pet, the little girl is played by a 25 or 30 year old actress made up to look young.

Funny how I'll go to jail if I send in a kid to buy liquor for me, but the ABC can do it every day. No one wants to sell a kid a beer or a pack of cigarettes, the profit margin is way too small to do such a thing if you were the worst adult on earth. But Cheney-Bush has shown you can fool all of the people some of the time. If the problems with under-age drinking and smoking were great, it might be a different matter.....but the percentage is very very low. I don't care about the money being spent...it's the using of underage children that pisses me off to no end.

Many years ago, I remember reading a story about the same type of operation by the LRPD targeting package stores. The teens were ride-alongs and would enter the store while the officer remained in the car. They caught a bunch, my own regular booze seller among them.

I think they should continue the program, but absolutely do away with any thought of having these kids act independently. But then maybe they already are, according to the article this kid is semi-homeless. If so, then that brings up an even bigger question - who's recruiting these kids, and how?

With this kind of excellent supervision of the minors participating in the program going-on (i.e., not having any idea where Homeless Scott currently is), you know some of these kids are drinking what they're able to buy.

This program sounds like a great way for a minor to try to illegally buy liquor with impunity. Get caught, pull out the ABC card.

Re: the Ark ABC -- Does anyone out there know of any other board, commission or regulatory authority in this state where the only common denominator for holding the position is the lack of any experience in operating, holding an ownership interest in or employment in any business under the board's regulatory authority?

In my town the vice squad has been known to send its young ladies to the salon for the afternoon prior to their sting operation with a couple of C-notes along with instructions to make 'em look like they're 35 going on 40. It is also unlawful here (local ordinance) for a minor to attempt to purchase alcoholic beverages, with a fine of up to $500 upon conviction. We've retained a number of minors' drivers licenses over the years and turned them over as evidence when initiating prosecution under the ordinance, but have never been called to testify against them in court proceedings or have seen any stories in the paper of them having been prosecuted. Apparently holding the minors responsible for their own actions has a very low priority with the authorities. It is easier to go after the store & bar owners and that way they don't upset little Johnny or Janie's voter parents, at least until the day after their funerals caused by a fatal teen DWI crash.

"No one wants to sell a kid a beer or a pack of cigarettes, the profit margin is way too small to do such a thing if you were the worst adult on earth."

Inchman, You might be interested.nah. Somebody might be interested what the worst people on earth do say about selling tobacco to kids. You know, the folks that make up 90% of today's' nicotine addicts, kids.

http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0114.pdf

Sorry my dear dear friend, Zarathustra, but your home companion's employment sorta mutes the impact of your posts on tobacco products. Henry Ford never had a good thing to say about a Chevy either.

Apples and oranges, Inch baby. Henry et al still made big bucks selling cars. Nobody is selling much of anything around here and the big bucks just are not happening. Tobacco prevention pretty much speaks for itself. Count the bodies. And fyi, my partner's real passion is domestic violence.