LOS ANGELES, Calif.–Undercover officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control will be out in force this weekend for the 13th annual “Safe and Sober Graduation Operation,” designed to combat underage alcohol use.
“Between June 1 and June 30, an estimated 27,000 students will graduate from Los Angeles Unified School District high schools,” said LAPD Sgt. Lifernando Garcia.
“Based on past events, it is anticipated that many of these students will be celebrating this significant event in their young lives,” he said, and “a number of them will be attempting to use alcoholic beverages as a means of enhancing their celebrations.”
“We want to warn those individuals who are likely to furnish alcoholic beverages to underage individuals that the LAPD and ABC will be aggressively prosecuting those individuals who knowingly put alcohol in (their) hands,” Garcia said.
Authorities will conduct minor decoy “shoulder-tap” operations, in which adults will be asked to buy alcohol for underage people at school-area businesses that are licensed to sell alcohol by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
If they comply, they will be issued citations. During the same operation a year ago, underage decoys approached 344 adults and asked them to buy alcohol. Forty adults complied and were issued citations, Garcia said.
The shoulder-tap activities will take place throughout the city, and many of them will coincide with high school graduations in their respective areas, Garcia said.
