Selling Alcohol to a Minor

If you work in any establishment that sells alcohol, you should know that it is illegal to sell alcohol to any minor under the age of 21. While most employees are familiar with the law, enforcing it in practice can be more difficult. Sometimes long lines at the cash register may force you to work at a more hurried pace and you may not examine an ID as closely as you should. Perhaps you misread the date or failed to check for an ID altogether. If you sell alcohol to a minor even unintentionally, you may be arrested.

Police occasionally run sting operations on bars, liquor stores, grocery stores, food marts, and other vendors who sell alcohol. They typically send a minor to the counter with alcohol and either no ID or an underage ID. You may not know it at the time, but you are being tested to see if you will decline the sale to the minor. If you fail to catch the invalid ID and complete the sale, you will likely find yourself ticketed and possibly arrested on the spot for a Class A misdemeanor offense.

Selling alcohol to a minor is a serious charge that can result in a one year jail sentence and a maximum fine of $4,000. Clearly even one slip up can be costly for an employee and the store owner. In many cases the employee has no criminal record and did not intentionally sell alcohol to a minor.

If this has happened to you, consider contacting a criminal defense lawyer immediately. An attorney can investigate the circumstances of the sting to make sure the police followed proper procedures. If, for example, a minor used a fake ID consistent with his or her appearance to try to purchase the alcohol, you cannot be arrested for not knowing that the ID was a fake.

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For sound legal advice and assistance with preparing your defense for court, please contact experienced Austin criminal defense attorney Ian Inglis today at 512-472-1950.