I had one kid that worked for me,who WAS over 21,buy a case of beer from the store.He was heading for his car with his girlfriend,who was only 20,and a local cop who happened to be in the parking lot saw them and would not let him put that beer in his car because SHE wasn't of age!So the local,small town cops have their fare share of Barney Fifes,too!
And if we were to challenge the cops,then all we'd get for our troubles is a cruiser parked outside the store 24/7...harassing ALL our customers!
And a few months before that,one of my cashiers caught a kid from a local college with a phony ID and called the cops.She knew the license was fake because she ALSO saw the girl's college ID card,and she had gone to the same college before and knew that the first numbers on the college ID card were the student's birth date...which DIDN'T match the date on the license!
She ran out of the store to a waiting car and took off,and when a cruiser FINALLY showed up,the cop didn't even want to get out of his car to look at the security tape! But these same cops have no reservations about running sting operations where they dress kids up to look older and try to trick stores into selling to them!
And they pull the same stunts with sting operations with CIGARETTES!
Many moons ago when I lived in Maryland, I worked in a store that was next door to a liquor store and I got to be friends with the owners. One day the Maryland State Police sent in a cadet who was just shy of 21 but looked to be about 30 and he was in uniform to boot. They young guy working behind the counter mistakenly figured that a big burly guy who looked about 30 years old and was wearing a MD State Police uniform (the clerk didn’t know the difference between a cadet uniform or a full State police uniform) and who pulled up in front of the store in a MD State Police car, didn’t need to be carded to buy a bottle of liquor (back then the drinking age for beer and wine was still 18 FWIW).
That was a big mistake on his part and the liquor store, even as they contested on the grounds it was some sort of entrapment, was fined many thousands of dollars for their “infraction” and threatened with loss of their license. IIRC they tried to or did criminally prosecute the clerk too which ironically pretty much ruined his chances of getting into the Navy.
I later worked at another shopping center near another liquor store and for several days there was this “kid” hanging around asking various people to go into the liquor store to buy liquor for him. When he approached me I told him, “First of all no and secondly no because I know you are a State cop”.
“I’m not a cop”, he protested but then I told him “BS. Every afternoon for the last four days, I saw you get out of a State Police car parked across the street”. I told the owners of the liquor store what was going on and the stationed a guy in front of their store to make sure none of their customers fell for it or them getting fined as well. Then the police showed up and threatened the store owner with “obstruction of justice”.