Shoulder taps lead to four arrests

LAKE COUNTY — On Monday, Aug. 22, members of the Lake County/CSKT Joint Alcohol Enforcement Team conducted Alcohol Compliance Checks to determine if local establishments would serve alcohol to minors. When asked, the minor was to produce their own valid identification card which shows the minor to be under the age of 21. There was no attempt to deceive the servers. Eight local businesses were picked at random. All eight passed.

Thank you to the establishments that passed, they are: KwaTaqNuk Resort, Ricciardi’s Italian Seafood House, The Wolf Den, Town Pump of Polson, The Club Bar, Dyno-Mart, Tina Maries and Willards.

Also conducted that night was operation “Shoulder Tap” where an underage youth approaches an adult outside an establishment that sells alcohol, tells that person that they are not old enough to purchase alcohol and asks them to buy them the alcohol. This operation was conducted throughout Lake County. There were four arrests made for people that purchased alcohol for the juveniles. One of the individuals was also cited for possession of marijuana and another individual was cited for possession of drug paraphernalia.

The team would like to thank the citizens that were approached and did not buy alcohol. There was a person that reported the minor to the store clerk who came out and requested the minor to leave the area. So if you are approached by a minor attempting to purchase alcohol — don’t. Tell someone, or call 911.

The agencies involved are Tribal Law Enforcement, Polson City Police, Montana State Highway Patrol, Mission City Police, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the Montana Community Change Project, which offers technical assistance to each agency as requested. The Lake County DUI Task Force deserves a special thank you for their support of this multi-agency task force.

Our youth are our most precious resource; together we can make a difference for them.