Some Montezuma County liquor-store owners whose establishments failed an alcohol sting operation last month are now considering fighting the misdemeanor charges on the grounds that the sheriff’s office did not play by the rules.

Tim Lawrence, owner of Log Cabin Liquor in Mancos, said that the local sheriff’s office did not comply with a number of guidelines concerning compliance checks for underage alcohol sales as suggested by the Colorado Liquor Enforcement Division.

As a result, Lawrence said that he plans to fight the charges in court and at the county commissioners’ hearing.

Gary Schmidlin, manager of Smitty’s Liquors, said he also plans on fighting the misdemeanor charges.

The two stores, along with four others, allegedly sold alcohol to a 20-year-old operative who was working undercover with the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office in July.

"I’m not sure that these cops are even aware that they have guidelines. If they are, then they’re ignoring the ones that they want to and just using the ones that they feel like," Lawrence said.

According to the Colorado State Government website, the guidelines were developed by representatives of Colorado law-enforcement agencies, the liquor industry, municipal and county governments and members of the legal profession.

The goal of the group was to create a fair, effective and workable set of guidelines that could be used by cities and counties regardless of their size.

Lawrence said that specific guidelines the sheriff’s office violated were one saying the law officers should take a picture of the underage operative on the day of the sting operation (to show how old he appears) and another saying they should notify the store clerk on the same day (either immediately or at the end of the operation) that the underage alcohol sale occurred.

"What they have at the police station is a copy of (the underage operative’s) driver’s license — and if the guy is 20 years old, I assume that (the license) was issued when he was 18. So that is a two-year-old driver’s license that you can’t tell a thing about," Lawrence said.

The owner added that the sheriff’s officers waited approximately 22 hours before returning to the store to inform his clerk of the violation.

"With us (the sheriff’s office) claimed that there was a cop in the store with (the operative). Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, because they didn’t come right back in.

"So, there again, you are just throwing yourself on the mercy of a cop — and if he wants to lie he can lie. If he doesn’t he can tell the truth — I’m not going to know one way or the other," said Lawrence.

On Wednesday, Sheriff’s Detective Kalvin Boggs said the department waits to serve the summons so that other sting operations later in the day are not jeopardized.

"We want to give all of the stores a chance to obey the law and do the right thing," Boggs said Wednesday.

Lawrence conceded that, if the officer were to serve the summons right away, the liquor stores’ employees would probably call each other to warn that a sting operation was in progress.

He also complained that the sheriff’s office has never sent a letter to a business that did not sell alcohol to the minor during the sting operation within the allotted 14 days, as specified by the Liquor Enforcement Division guidelines.

"When they run a sting on you and you don’t sell to (the minor), they are supposed to send you a letter within 14 days," said Lawrence. "They haven’t done that to any store in this county ever," he said.

However, Don Pace, a spokesperson for the Colorado Liquor Enforcement Division, said that the established guidelines are not law.

The guidelines are intended to improve cooperation between law-enforcement and liquor-store owners and employees, he said. While law-enforcement agencies could follow the guidelines, they are not mandatory.