CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat An officer from the Tucson Police Department places flex-cuffs on a person outside the Trident Bar and Grill Friday night. Police arrested three minors and cited seven stores as part of "Operation Last Call," an ongoing effort to curb underage drinking.

Three minors arrested in TPD crackdown on businesses serving underage drinkers

TPD officers arrested three minors drinking in bars and cited seven stores for selling to underage customers Friday night ÷ part of the police's ongoing quest to stop underage drinking.

"We're going to find every avenue to stop youth drinking," said Capt. John Leavitt, of the Tucson Police Department Midtown Division. "We'll go wherever the alcohol and underagers are found together."

"Operation Last Call," a joint effort between the Tucson Police Department, the Arizona Department of Corrections and the Arizona Department of Liquor License Control was staged on Friday from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. on Saturday.

Early Friday afternoon, police used the Covert Underage Buying program (CUB) in 30 off-sale alcohol establishments, those where customers take liquor away from the store to drink.

The CUB program uses underage informants to enter off-sale stores and purchase alcohol without using identification. Stores that sell to CUB informants are immediately cited.

Of the 30 off-sale stores, seven sold to the underage CUB informants, said Sgt. Marco Borboa, TPD spokesman.

Tucson police will use Friday's results to further investigate off-sale stores and their connection to underage drinking. According to previous findings, usually 10 percent of off-sale stores sell to minors.

Later, undercover officers entered 18 city bars, of which only two showed a need for additional police activity.

Trident Bar and Grill, 2033 E. Speedway Blvd., was the only campus-area bar found to have a minor drinking inside. Police checked identifications of nearly 200 customers, and made only one arrest.

At 12:30 a.m., police went to the El Charro CafŽ at El Mercado, 6310 E. Broadway Blvd., checked identifications and made two arrests for fake identification and minor in possession.

Although TPD officials were happy to see fewer minors in the bars, they were worried about the large amount of stores still selling alcohol to minors. The police started making a larger effort last semester to stop the amount of minors drinking.

"The contacts since May and the partnerships we've made with bars seem to be working," Borboa said. "The results from Friday night do show that more youths are purchasing alcohol at off-sale establishments."

Bar patrons and managers did not share TPD's enthusiasm when 31 officers entered and surrounded their businesses.

At Trident, some customers were confused as to what was going on. One patron yelled to the police that they were being "rude" and "unfair."

Boyd Dennington, a 21-year-old microbiology junior who was at Trident, said the police should have been looking into other crimes in the community.

"They should be going after people robbing banks or shooting each other," he said. "They should be going after real crimes."

Students should not feel that the police are strictly after them, said Capt. John Leavitt, TPD Midtown Division.

Leavitt said it is a citywide issue that extends far from the campus, citing the search of El Charro, which is on the corner of East Broadway Boulevard and North Wilmot Road.

Josue Limon, a manager at El Charro at El Mercado, thought the police activity was a waste of money and that TPD could find better ways of improving relations with the entertainment and nightclub industry.

"There should be a much more proactive approach rather than reactive," he said while two underage patrons were being arrested at the back entrance of the bar.

Limon suggested police invest money into teaching the door staff of bars about the different fake identifications that are being made. The money spent on Friday's search could have been put into license education classes, he said.

"It's really bad, as a taxpayer, that so much money can be wasted in our location," he said. "I feel this is complete harassment and we were just blindsided."

Leavitt said he understands that bar owners and patrons may feel unhappy with the police action, but that it serves a higher interest, one that all alcohol-sellers should recognize.

"Our intent is not to interrupt business," he said. "Our intent is to deal with the false ID problem and underage drinkers."