Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- State investigators say they found nearly 200 underage patrons at SugarHouse Pub in Salt Lake City.
- The operation revealed 186 underage individuals, with six being only 17 years old.
- The Utah Department of Public Safety says well made fake ID's have become a big problem.
SALT LAKE CITY — State investigators recently conducted a fake identification operation at a neighborhood bar in Sugar House in Salt Lake City, and the results were eye-opening, they said.
What they found on that night was that the overwhelming majority of patrons at the SugarHouse Pub not only weren't 21 — six of them weren't even 18.
On Thursday, the Utah Department of Public Safety announced the results of its recent operation. The investigation began two- to- three months ago when police stopped a suspected impaired driver who had just been at SugarHouse Pub, 1994 S. 1100 East. The driver was just 19, said State Bureau of Investigation Lt. Jeff Adams.
As investigators took a closer look at the bar, they received other reports of possible underage drinking. Agents started visiting the bar while working undercover, he said. A few weeks ago, state investigators visited the bar again and observed that the majority of people in the establishment appeared to be underage, Adams said.
"At that point, we decided we needed to take a serious stance," he told KSL.com on Thursday,
On Nov. 22 — a Friday night — agents from the State Bureau of Investigation and troopers from the Utah Highway Patrol showed up and sealed off the building, not allowing anyone to leave until they could check and verify the IDs of every person in the bar.
After four hours of processing everyone in the building, Adams said investigators found that 186 of the approximately 200-to-250 people inside the pub were under the age of 21. Six of those people were just 17.
In addition, approximately 50 fake identification cards were seized. But Adams believes there were more that weren't found as several patrons are believed to have thrown their IDs in the trash, hidden them or even flushed them down a toilet once word spread that police were there.
The fake IDs being used to gain entrance into the bar are "extremely good; they're really good," said Adams who also noted that the issue of fake identification cards "is very big and thriving in Utah."
But that doesn't excuse a bar from the need to keep underage patrons out, he said.
"The bar doesn't have to let them into their establishment," just because they identification seemed legitimate, Adams said. Even if it takes extra time, he said the bar needs to better vet the patrons who look really young.
"Bottom line is, the doorman should probably not have allowed them into the bar," he said.
Fake IDs are typically ordered online and even come with a bar code on the back that can be scanned, he said. The person checking IDs at a bar typically only looks at the birth date after scanning a license or ID and then verifies that the picture on the card matches the person trying to get in.
But Adams says there are other checks that can be looked at when scanning the barcodes on state-issued licenses and identifications. And while the 186 people who were under 21 at SugarHouse Pub were cited with class B misdemeanors for either being in the bar, drinking, having a fake ID or all of the above, the onus is also on the bar to not let them in.
The Department of Public Safety will submit its investigation to the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services, which could issue a fine and suspend SugarHouse Pub's liquor license. The bar remained open as of Thursday.
Adams says police believe underage people are using fake IDs to get into other bars across the state, and he expects similar operations in the future of officers showing up to a bar unannounced and checking everyone's ID. The problem, Adams said, is troopers are seeing an increase of people injured or killed in DUI crashes who are found to have fake IDs in their pockets and have just left a bar.
"We're trying to protect our youth," he said.
