ABC’s of Alcohol Sales Law
Santa Maria Police hosted a free public workshop Wednesday night for business owners and their employees who sell alcohol.
The goal is to educate people in businesses that sell alcohol that asking for someone to show an ID is only part of what the law requires.
“Its illegal to sell alcohol, serve alcohol or drink alcohol in you establishment after 2:00am”, said retired California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) enforcement officer John Hall to more than a dozen people who gathered at the Minami Center in Santa Maria Wednesday night.
They were there to hear Hall shed light on the law of alcohol sales in California and the growing list of restrictions and responsibilities for those who hold so-called ABC liquor licenses.
“The owner of a bar, the owner of a liquor store is now responsible for an area beyond what they think”, Hall said explaining the law now declares a “control area” around establishments that sell alcohol.
The California ABC relies on underage decoys to monitor and enforce the 21 years of age limit to purchase alcohol and punish businesses that violate it, including steep fines and the suspension or revocation of a liquor license.
“They are not doing anything to trick you or entrap you”, Hall said about the use of decoys in undercover enforcement operations, “the State Supreme Court has ruled decoys are legal and they are not entrapment.”
“The license is everything, they can take it away”, says Santa Maria bar owner Jim Hoobery who brought five of his employees to the workshop Wednesday night to stay up on how the ABC enforces the law and how to protect his all-important liquor license.
“People do not realize how much power the ABC has”, Hoobery says, “they are very, very powerful.”
Hoobery says the free ABC workshops are immensely valuable for him and his employees.
“They are very, very important”, Hoobery says, “just for alcohol awareness, serving people who’ve had too much to drink, checking ID’s properly, the right way to check them, the wrong way to check them, making sure you don’t serve intoxicated people, just making sure you run a good, clean business, because it’s a tough business.”
Santa Maria Police use money from a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to host the free ABC workshops and decoy operations involving underage alcohol sales.
