Entrapment

[Freiheit Reich]

There are some people who look old for there age. Maybe he reached full height and was dressed like an adult and he might have even been wearing makeup, a fake beard and sun glasses. You can look much older if you want to.

To be perfectly honest, there is absolutely 0% chance of us ever being able to believe OP's story without a photo of the ID card and minor in question.

Good point. If it is true than it is great the OP lives in a place where cops don't need to worry about rapes, murders, thefts, assaults, drunk drivers, drug dealers, etc. He must live in Mayberry since cops have so much time to focus on victimless crimes.

Hey OP: can you tell us your town location? Some people might enjoy living in such a safe place (even if it is totalitarian).

[Tekania]

She intends to. Needless to say, she is FURIOUS over the actions the stores have taken.

She may have one against the police for the misdemeanor portion of the charge...... as for her termination...... that would depend on if you live in an at-will-employment state..... cause if you do.... there will be little legal recourse in the context of the termination.

[Obsidius]

Abolish the drinking age. It's a parent's responsibility, and it only perpetuates the actions within youth groups. It's only fun because it's illegal. Speaking as someone who has been there, done that, by the way.

[Ifreann]

I am against these operations. Another sign that the USA is a police state. It is immoral for the police to do this but not a shocker.

What's immoral about it?

Besides, a 16 year old should be allowed to drink alcohol. After all, he can be charged as an adult in a criminal court so the state considers him an adult (but only when it is convenient for them it seems). If you are old enough to be convicted as an adult than you are old enough to smoke and drink alcohol.

Being tried as an adult is a misleading term. It's a retronym, a new name for some existing thing coined to distinguish it from a new version of that thing. They used to just be guitars, but then we invented electric guitars, so now we call them acoustic guitars. Being tried as an adult is just being tried, and relatively recently we came up with the concept of trying people as juveniles.

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There is no point in having laws regarding the sale of alcohol to minors if there will be no follow-up to ensure that the laws are being followed by retailers; preventing police from testing retailers in this way makes it very difficult for the state to bring cases against sellers who break the law and undermines the law to the point where it's just some words on paper. And we do need these laws; regardless of what many of the teenagers on this site will say, teenagers are not fully brain-developed and are not overly good at considering factors of risk when making decisions. They do not have the capacity to determine how much alcohol they should have and as such, they should not be allowed to buy it for themselves, most particularly those under 18.

Police can check bars and arrest the people drinking underage, they are the ones that know they are breaking the law. Punish the offender, not the seller. Also, it should be legal to buy alcohol if you are under 21 if you are not drinking it. You might be buying it for your parents. Buying it doesn't harm you, drinking it does.

The retailer is an offender. It is against the law to sell alcohol to minors. This is a law that alcohol retailers would have explicitly agreed to when they applied for their license to sell alcohol.

[Freiheit Reich]

I am against these operations. Another sign that the USA is a police state. It is immoral for the police to do this but not a shocker.

What's immoral about it?

Besides, a 16 year old should be allowed to drink alcohol. After all, he can be charged as an adult in a criminal court so the state considers him an adult (but only when it is convenient for them it seems). If you are old enough to be convicted as an adult than you are old enough to smoke and drink alcohol.

Being tried as an adult is a misleading term. It's a retronym, a new name for some existing thing coined to distinguish it from a new version of that thing. They used to just be guitars, but then we invented electric guitars, so now we call them acoustic guitars. Being tried as an adult is just being tried, and relatively recently we came up with the concept of trying people as juveniles.

---

Police can check bars and arrest the people drinking underage, they are the ones that know they are breaking the law. Punish the offender, not the seller. Also, it should be legal to buy alcohol if you are under 21 if you are not drinking it. You might be buying it for your parents. Buying it doesn't harm you, drinking it does.

The retailer is an offender. It is against the law to sell alcohol to minors. This is a law that alcohol retailers would have explicitly agreed to when they applied for their license to sell alcohol.

Technically the police are encouraging somebody to commit a crime when they tell a teenager to buy beer. They are just giving him permission to commit a crime. Also, I don't want to live in a place where police try to trick people into committing crimes. The police need to focus on crimes that have victims. Buying alcohol, gambling, and prostitution are vicimless crimes.

[Ifreann]

What's immoral about it?


Being tried as an adult is a misleading term. It's a retronym, a new name for some existing thing coined to distinguish it from a new version of that thing. They used to just be guitars, but then we invented electric guitars, so now we call them acoustic guitars. Being tried as an adult is just being tried, and relatively recently we came up with the concept of trying people as juveniles.

---

The retailer is an offender. It is against the law to sell alcohol to minors. This is a law that alcohol retailers would have explicitly agreed to when they applied for their license to sell alcohol.

Technically the police are encouraging somebody to commit a crime when they tell a teenager to buy beer. They are just giving him permission to commit a crime.

Yes, I suppose they are. So what?

Also, I don't want to live in a place where police try to trick people into committing crimes.

They aren't tricking people into committing crimes. They're tricking people into getting caught, maybe, but what's wrong with that?

The police need to focus on crimes that have victims. Buying alcohol, gambling, and prostitution are vicimless crimes.

I'm sure they do focus on more serious crimes. That doesn't mean they ignore other crimes.

[Costa Fierro]

The dairy down the road (and for those outside of NZ, dairy is local lingo for convenience store) was stung twice for these kinds of things, although the person at the counter at the time didn't actually ask for ID or something along those lines. Personally I don't have any issues with this, as it shows that you should pay attention to your line of work, even one as mundane as this.

They do stings here for cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are freely sold here to people over 18 years of age.

[Ifreann]

The dairy down the road (and for those outside of NZ, dairy is local lingo for convenience store) was stung twice for these kinds of things, although the person at the counter at the time didn't actually ask for ID or something along those lines. Personally I don't have any issues with this, as it shows that you should pay attention to your line of work, even one as mundane as this.

They do stings here for cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are freely sold here to people over 18 years of age.

They do them here too, though I've never been stung, as it were. I'm given to understand that it involves one plain clothes officer in the store to be a witness, and one outside to confiscate the ill-gotten alcohol from the teenager, so I suspect I'd see it coming.

[Ayreonia]

Gas station clerks are expected to spot fake IDs? What next, check customers' stuff for pipe bombs?

[Hurdegaryp]

I wish sting operations were not allowed.

Did you know that if you are a public official and I pretend to offer you a bribe, and you do not promptly tell the authorities, you can be charged with extortion even though you never touched or accepted the bribe?

These stings would not be crimes at all but for the police element. It's fantasy, a make believe offense.

The police is not your friend. You, as a citizen, are a neutral factor at best and almost the enemy by default. Just ask the inhabitants of Ferguson.

[Ifreann]

Gas station clerks are expected to spot fake IDs?

When they're selling alcohol, tobacco, or anything else that's restricted to people above a certain age, yes, up to a point.

What next, check customers' stuff for pipe bombs?

No, that would be completely outside their purview.

[Entmonton]

To be perfectly honest, there is absolutely 0% chance of us ever being able to believe OP's story without a photo of the ID card and minor in question.

Good point. If it is true than it is great the OP lives in a place where cops don't need to worry about rapes, murders, thefts, assaults, drunk drivers, drug dealers, etc. He must live in Mayberry since cops have so much time to focus on victimless crimes.

Hey OP: can you tell us your town location? Some people might enjoy living in such a safe place (even if it is totalitarian).

Emporia, Kansas. Nearly everyone who I know in person says it sucks and that when they get their degrees they plan on bolting without a second thought, and as a gay man, I have to agree; Kansas won't recognize same-sex marriages even if they're done out of state AND there's no clause protecting LGBTs from being fired just for their individuality.
By all means, DON'T come to Kansas; it's not all Yellow Brick Roads and Emerald Cities here. It's more like a Blackhole of Oppression (unless you are white, male, heterosexual and at least middle-class).

The dairy down the road (and for those outside of NZ, dairy is local lingo for convenience store) was stung twice for these kinds of things, although the person at the counter at the time didn't actually ask for ID or something along those lines. Personally I don't have any issues with this, as it shows that you should pay attention to your line of work, even one as mundane as this.

They do stings here for cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are freely sold here to people over 18 years of age.

I agree with your statement on paying attention to whatever your job may be, even as something as simple as a clerk. However, she truly did the best she possibly could and yet she gets fired for it. I don't see how this situation is any way, shape or form fair.

[Entmonton]

Good Lord, I'm gone for only a day and the topic goes haywire. =/

[Freiheit Reich]

Good point. If it is true than it is great the OP lives in a place where cops don't need to worry about rapes, murders, thefts, assaults, drunk drivers, drug dealers, etc. He must live in Mayberry since cops have so much time to focus on victimless crimes.

Hey OP: can you tell us your town location? Some people might enjoy living in such a safe place (even if it is totalitarian).

Emporia, Kansas. Nearly everyone who I know in person says it sucks and that when they get their degrees they plan on bolting without a second thought, and as a gay man, I have to agree; Kansas won't recognize same-sex marriages even if they're done out of state AND there's no clause protecting LGBTs from being fired just for their individuality.
By all means, DON'T come to Kansas; it's not all Yellow Brick Roads and Emerald Cities here. It's more like a Blackhole of Oppression (unless you are white, male, heterosexual and at least middle-class).

The dairy down the road (and for those outside of NZ, dairy is local lingo for convenience store) was stung twice for these kinds of things, although the person at the counter at the time didn't actually ask for ID or something along those lines. Personally I don't have any issues with this, as it shows that you should pay attention to your line of work, even one as mundane as this.

They do stings here for cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are freely sold here to people over 18 years of age.

I agree with your statement on paying attention to whatever your job may be, even as something as simple as a clerk. However, she truly did the best she possibly could and yet she gets fired for it. I don't see how this situation is any way, shape or form fair.

I have heard of that town. Cheap houses and crappy weather but there are worse places to live. Does the town have any crimes involving victims or are all crimes victimless there (ex. people buying tobacco and alcohol underage, gambling, prostitution)? It seems the police don';t have much to do there. Are there any rapes, robberies, murders?

According to this chart there were crimes with victims. It seems the police need to refocus their priorities a bit in that town, sad that so many people on this forum think buying alcohol is more a more serious crime than rape (based on the fact some people on this forum support the police on this matter). Until the rapes and assaults drop to 0 than the police need to focus on those crimes first:

http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statist ... poria.html

[Ifreann]

Emporia, Kansas. Nearly everyone who I know in person says it sucks and that when they get their degrees they plan on bolting without a second thought, and as a gay man, I have to agree; Kansas won't recognize same-sex marriages even if they're done out of state AND there's no clause protecting LGBTs from being fired just for their individuality.
By all means, DON'T come to Kansas; it's not all Yellow Brick Roads and Emerald Cities here. It's more like a Blackhole of Oppression (unless you are white, male, heterosexual and at least middle-class).


I agree with your statement on paying attention to whatever your job may be, even as something as simple as a clerk. However, she truly did the best she possibly could and yet she gets fired for it. I don't see how this situation is any way, shape or form fair.

I have heard of that town. Cheap houses and crappy weather but there are worse places to live. Does the town have any crimes involving victims or are all crimes victimless there (ex. people buying tobacco and alcohol underage, gambling, prostitution)? It seems the police don';t have much to do there. Are there any rapes, robberies, murders?

According to this chart there were crimes with victims. It seems the police need to refocus their priorities a bit in that town, sad that so many people on this forum think buying alcohol is more a more serious crime than rape (based on the fact some people on this forum support the police on this matter). Until the rapes and assaults drop to 0 than the police need to focus on those crimes first:

http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statist ... poria.html

What makes you think that this sting took any time away from investigations into rapes and assaults?

[Farnhamia]

I have heard of that town. Cheap houses and crappy weather but there are worse places to live. Does the town have any crimes involving victims or are all crimes victimless there (ex. people buying tobacco and alcohol underage, gambling, prostitution)? It seems the police don';t have much to do there. Are there any rapes, robberies, murders?

According to this chart there were crimes with victims. It seems the police need to refocus their priorities a bit in that town, sad that so many people on this forum think buying alcohol is more a more serious crime than rape (based on the fact some people on this forum support the police on this matter). Until the rapes and assaults drop to 0 than the police need to focus on those crimes first:

http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statist ... poria.html

What makes you think that this sting took any time away from investigations into rapes and assaults?

It is a well-known fact - I heard two schoolchildren discussing it just the other day - that the police, indeed, the entire government, is incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. In the case of the police, for "gum" read "donuts."

[Tekania]

I have heard of that town. Cheap houses and crappy weather but there are worse places to live. Does the town have any crimes involving victims or are all crimes victimless there (ex. people buying tobacco and alcohol underage, gambling, prostitution)? It seems the police don';t have much to do there. Are there any rapes, robberies, murders?

According to this chart there were crimes with victims. It seems the police need to refocus their priorities a bit in that town, sad that so many people on this forum think buying alcohol is more a more serious crime than rape (based on the fact some people on this forum support the police on this matter). Until the rapes and assaults drop to 0 than the police need to focus on those crimes first:

http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statist ... poria.html

What makes you think that this sting took any time away from investigations into rapes and assaults?

Police Comissionar:"Okay, I need everyone in all the precincts to stop what they are doing, Detective smith is sending a boy out on a sting for underage alcohol sales; and I need all the local police assets assistance with this."

[Ayreonia]

Gas station clerks are expected to spot fake IDs?

When they're selling alcohol, tobacco, or anything else that's restricted to people above a certain age, yes, up to a point.

What next, check customers' stuff for pipe bombs?

No, that would be completely outside their purview.

Contrary to popular belief, spotting a fake ID is not easy, especially if it's well done. Besides, the difference between an 8 and a 9 could easily be mistaken for wear, dirt or a scratch. Gas station clerks are not trained or equipped properly enough to see through a forgery; it would be unreasonable to expect them to do so in every case.