Some liquor stings a waste?

The state needs to ease up on using undercover agents to bust restaurants for allowing customers to leave with open bottles of beer, Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, told liquor commissioners on Tuesday.

"I think it's a waste of effort to go after restaurants in that manner," Dunnigan said. "I think it's unreasonable to expect restaurants to have somebody at every exit ... trying to frisk or monitor people."

He said sting operations have been set up by state liquor law enforcement officers at restaurants that have focused on open container laws rather than more serious violations, such as underage drinking.

Restaurants are being fined and having their liquor licenses suspended, Dunnigan said, only so officers can easily "chalk up serious violations" for something he said should be seen as minor, especially when an undercover officer is involved rather than a regular customer.

Members of the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission — who rarely, if ever, hear directly from state lawmakers at their meetings — said they understood his concerns.

"We hear where you're coming from," the commission's chairman, Sam Granato, said. "We value the licensees. We need the licensees. We want the restaurants. And we want to be fair about what we do."

Granato said after the meeting that commissioners will consider changes to the commission's rules that would ease the penalties on restaurants caught in such sting operations.

Earl Dorius, the department's head of licensing and compliance, said there was an increase in the past year in the number of cases of open bottles of beer being taken from restaurants. Virtually all of them, he said, involved undercover officers.

Dorius, who said he has met with liquor law enforcement agents to urge them to focus instead on violations involving serving underage drinkers and inebriated customers, said the state considers carrying an open bottle of beer out of a restaurant to be a serious offense.

Serious offenses, considered those that affect public safety such as serving minors alcohol, carry a fine of up to $25,000 and penalties ranging from a five-day liquor license suspension to a liquor license revocation.

Dorius said commissioners do have some latitude, although in the past, violators caught in the sting operations could count on a license suspension. But new appointments made by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to the commission could change that, he said.