The State Liquor Authority conducted its annual sting operation to bust stores for selling booze to minors, discovering once again that minors are more likely to win tickets to Hamilton than be carded buying a sixer of Natty Light.
Of the 217 businesses visited, the agency's underage "decoys" were able to score alcohol at 83 grocery and liquor stores, a 37% success failure rate. The highest concentration of businesses were in Manhattan, where the teenaged narcs were able to purchase alcohol at 26 different places. Queens came in second with 18, followed by 15 in the Bronx and 10 in both Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Fines for hawking hooch to minors comes with a hefty financial burden, including up to $10,000 in civil penalties per violation and fines between $2,500 to $3,000 for a first offense. Naturally, some store owners are pissed.
"They didn’t say anything. All I got was a notice. In the old days they used to confront you immediately. I hadn’t had any problems in 15 years," one Manhattan store owner railed to the Post. "All my people proof anyone who looks like they might be underage. My guess is that the kid looked a lot older than he was." One bodega owner also claimed the decoy "looks a lot older" when they were inside his Staten Island shop buying Coors Light.
That's kind of the point, guys.
