World Photo by Lou Sennick Rather than face a $1,300 fine from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, Hauser Store owner David Cardwell will close the convenience store for a week after an employee sold beer to a minor.

When a scantily clad 20-year-old woman stepped to the counter at the Hauser Store to buy a six-pack of beer in February, the clerk had no idea he was about to get stung.

But he knew it a few moments after the transaction was complete.

She got the beer for less than five bucks.

He was slapped with a $750 fine from an agent of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission for selling beer to a person under 21 years old, a violation of state law.

While the clerk paid his fine, the Hauser Store's owners, 64-year-old David Cardwell, and his wife, Jane, decided not to pay their $1,320 penalty for the employee's transgression.

“Rather than pay, we are closing,” David Cardwell said.

OLCC gives businesses the option to either pay the fine, or temporarily close their places of business.

So for eight days, beginning this morning at 7 a.m., the lights will be off at the store, and the store's two employees will go without a week's pay.

The store will open back up at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, June 7.

It makes the most business sense, Cardwell said. The profit margin at the store, located on Wildwood Road in Hauser, is considerably less than the penalty.

Cardwell is not denying his employee erred. He said while the clerk did ID the woman, her alluring attire distracted him, and he did not pay attention to the phrase “minor until 2007” clearly emblazoned on her driver's license.

“This young woman was dressed in very provocative clothing more suited for the bedroom,” Cardwell, who said he was in the store at the time, wrote in a letter to OLCC officials. “I would not allow my daughter to leave the house dressed in such a way.”

For that reason, Cardwell contends OLCC is not playing fair, using words like “entrapment,” “Draconian” and “oligarchical,” when referring to the OLCC's tactics. He wants lawmakers to dismantle the agency entirely and short of that, he wants the law changed so clerks and servers are punished, not the owners.

“We feel we did everything right,” Cardwell wrote. “We trained (our clerk) correctly. We tested him correctly. We feel that your rule ... is an insult to our integrity and our ability to run our little store in a proper manner.”

But Gary Francis, the local OLCC agent who coordinates the stings and hires the decoys said Cardwell's argument is just an instance of sour grapes.

“Maybe he should have been looking at her driver's license,” Francis said of the clerk. “It was a straight-up deal. By the numbers. No trickery at all.”

Francis said the decoy was dressed in a tank top, attire most woman her age wear.

By state law, those who serve, or sell alcohol, are required to card anyone who looks 26 years old or younger, Francis said. He wants the decoys to look like 18-, 19- or 20-year-olds, not a 40-year-old.

“Everyone is on equal footing,” Francis said. “We are out there to see who is doing their job and who is not.”

The decoy men are forbidden from growing facial hair, including sideburns, while the woman are not allowed to wear makeup or doctor their hair to make them look more sophisticated, he said.

“This guy wasn't paying attention,” Francis said. “If he would have looked at that young lady's ID, he would have seen the big red box on her ID that said she was a minor until 2007. What more can we do? DMV makes it easy. But if you don't use the tools that the state provides, then you deserve to get caught.”

Cardwell maintains the woman looked older than 26, saying that age is ambiguous. Further, he said, the state sends a horrible message by, essentially, willfully sanctioning minors to possess alcohol for the stings.

“They are allowing young people to be above the law,” he said. “They're baiting. They're disguising. They're camouflaging them. They are trying to create a situation and trying to induce someone into taking the bait.”

Cardwell said his employees have been trained and that up until this February his record has been spotless for the 26 years he's been in business.

“Why, when you do everything that you are supposed to do, do you get punished?” he asked.

Francis acknowledged the Hauser Store owners have never been fined before for selling to minors, but that “there is a first time for everything.”

In addition, he said statistics indicate that those caught selling to minors, have likely done so in the past.

That's the reason the stings are done, he said.

Of the 300 or so alcohol licensees Francis keeps track of, he said 10 percent give him the most guff. To combat that, he said, when possible, he shows the licensees the decoy immediately following the sting. The overwhelming majority, he said, are flabbergasted their employee sold alcohol to the decoy.

While that may be true, Cardwell said he doubts the stings have any effect curbing underage drinking. Most minors, he believes, obtain alcohol from their parents' liquor cabinets or by convincing of-age friends or relatives to buy alcohol for them. He said the state has just found a way to make money.

Francis disagrees, saying first offenders are given every opportunity to reduce their fine through an administrative process. Furthermore, licensees can temporarily close their business, which does not benefit the state at all.

“If it was about the money, we would just say ‘pay the fine,'” Francis said.

While some customers understand it's the employees' duty to card them, some get irate with cashiers when asked to present ID, Cardwell said.

“They don't understand the intrusion,” Cardwell said.” They're not happy campers.”

That argument doesn't sit well with Francis either.

“If he thinks it's such a (problem), he can turn in his liquor license and not sell alcohol,” he said.

For the most part, licensees understand, Francis said.

“A liquor license is not a birth right. It's a privilege to have one. If you abuse that privilege, then you are going to lose it.”