AAPD to target fake ID users in area bars

The next time students try to use a false form of identification to buy alcohol in a local restaurant, they may receive more than a just a server's rejection. They may find themselves face-to-face with a police officer and a ticket.

The Ann Arbor Police Department recently received a grant from the state government to crackdown on underage drinking in area restaurants, AAPD spokesperson Sgt. Michael Logghe said.

Logghe said the grant proposes that officers be inside and outside restaurants and bars to check customers' IDs.

Ann Arbor police have not yet determined how to implement the program, since it is still in the "exploratory phase," Logghe said.

DHANI JONES/Daily James Welliver, a bartender at Cottage Inn Restaurant, will soon have some company checking identification.

It is unknown at this time if the AAPD officers will be posing undercover as servers, bartenders or managers when they enter restaurants to check for underage drinking.

But the AAPD has sent letters to area restaurants such as Cottage Inn, Pizza House and Good Time Charley's informing them of the proposed program.

"They are trying to turn the tables," Pizza House owner Dennis Tice said, explaining that usually it is the restaurants that the police target, not underage buyers.

This was the case in September, when AAPD officers ticketed four local restaurant-bars for not checking for age identification before serving alcohol. In the raid, undercover police officers posed as customers and asked to be served alcohol. Conor O'Neill's, Shalimar Restaurant, the Parthenon Restaurant and Old Heidelberg Restaurant were ticketed in the incident.

Tice said AAPD has posed as customers in Pizza House in the past. They attempted to buy alcohol without identification, but the restaurant employees asked to see their IDs and refused to serve them.

"They want to turn some responsibility" on the underage buyers, said Tice, adding that Pizza House has a choice in deciding whether it wants to cooperate with AAPD.

"It is voluntary, we don't have to do it," Tice said. He said he does plan to cooperate because his restaurant isn't in the business to sell alcohol to minors.

"Liquor licenses are hard enough to get. We don't want to take a chance," Tice said.

Logghe said AAPD has not set a concrete date for when it will begin entering the restaurants undercover.

An LSA senior who asked not to be identified said she thinks the new program will alter the behavior of students. "It seems likely in certain places you might know whether they usually card or not," she said.

If students know that a police officer may be undercover in the restaurant, she said, they may be less likely to attempt to use fake IDs or order alcoholic beverages when underage.

She added that the program would be useful in restaurants, because many students assume that "in a restaurant it is more likely that you wouldn't get carded at all," compared to a bar or convenience store where authorities might be more likely to ask for identification.

03-18-99