South Bay : Scouts Help Reduce Liquor Sales to Minors

Liquor outlets in Inglewood seem to have gotten the message that underage customers are not worth the trouble.

Since May, a team of police Explorer scouts, ages 15 to 19, has gone undercover with Inglewood officers on eight rounds to catch stores and markets in the act of selling alcohol to minors. The Explorers pose as customers, and the adult officers move in once alcohol and money have changed hands.

Although police sent letters to shopkeepers warning of the operation, 12 of the 45 sales outlets were cited on the team’s maiden run in May. The number fell to three on the last outing in late August.

Detective Tony Lopez said that before the program, alcohol sales to minors were rampant in Inglewood. “You would stop kids in the street with a six pack or a case of beer, and they’d tell you they could buy it anyplace,” he said. “Now it’s becoming a problem for them.”

The operation, which runs through October, is funded through a $100,000 grant from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

The underage team members received coaching to avoid exchanges that could be perceived as entrapment. They were prohibited from wearing street fashions, such as shaved heads and baggy pants, that might intimidate a clerk into selling to them.

Occasionally, though, the Explorers’ clean-cut way of life has led to hitches in the sting program. One operation fell apart after the Scout walked out of a market with Coors’ Cutter--he didn’t know that was the company’s nonalcoholic beer.