20-year-old store clerk arrested for underage alcohol sale
–On June 23 between the hours of 4-10 p.m., the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office’s Alcohol Compliance Team (ACT) operated a California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) grant funded minor decoy and shoulder tap operation in the Avila Beach, Los Osos, and Oceano areas, and arrested Zachary Breck Stone Thompson, 20 years old, of Nipomo, after police say he furnished alcohol to an underage decoy.
The “Minor Decoy Program” is an enforcement operation that utilizes minor decoys to enter retail stores to purchase alcoholic beverages. The “Decoy Shoulder Tap Program” is an enforcement operation that utilizes minor decoys to solicit customers to purchase alcoholic beverages on their behalf. If the sale or furnishing of alcohol to the minor decoy takes place, a team of deputy sheriffs specifically trained in ABC enforcement programs immediately take enforcement action against the person responsible for the violation.
On June 23, at 9:02 p.m., the ACT team arrested a register clerk (Thompson) at Oceano Market & Gas for selling alcoholic beverages to the minor decoy. During the operation, all other retailers and forty-one persons solicited to furnish alcohol responsibly declined to participate. Zachary Thompson was released on his signed promise to appear and will be charged through the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office for illegally furnishing/selling alcohol to a minor, a violation of a misdemeanor. The sheriff’s office will be forwarding the retailer violation case to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for consideration of administrative action against the alcohol licensee.
The Sheriff’s Office will be continuing ABC grant-funded operations through June 30, 2017. Ongoing programs include minor decoy deployment, shoulder tap operations, on-sale and off-sale licensee monitoring, and false identification detection operations.
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