6 Clawson Businesses Busted Selling Alcohol To Minors

CLAWSON (WWJ) - Employees at half-a-dozen Clawson businesses have been issued misdemeanor citations for selling alcohol to minors.

Clawson Police Chief Harry Anderson says twice a year they send decoys into every bar, restaurant and store with the liquor license in the Oakland County community — to test that they're following the letter of the law.

Last week the department assigned a pair of underage criminal justice students to the job, and the boy and girl were sold alcoholic beverages at the following  six establishments:

• Da Nang, a Vietnamese restaurant at 1 S. Main Street

• Main Street Liquor store, 243 E. 14 Mile Road

• Aldi grocery store at 14 Mile and Crooks roads

• Citgo gas station store at 14 Mile and Rochester roads

• BP gas station store at 15 Mile and Crooks roads

• Woodpile BBQ Shack, 303 S. Main Street

"It's amazing. We told the kids to be truthful at all times with the vendors, and if asked to produce their driver's license to do that," Anderson told WWJ's Lauren Barthold. "They were valid Michigan licenses, which were the vertical licenses in red ink saying the saying the date of when they weren't 21 yet."

The chief says in some cases the decoys were asked to and showed their licenses but were sold to anyway.

"It's just telling you that they're going through the motions and that they're not doing their due diligence in checking to make sure that minors aren't purchasing alcohol," Anderson said.

Anderson said his department will send a report about the violations to the state's Liquor Control Commission (LCC) which has the right to suspend the liquor license of a business that receives multiple violations.