Yes. Under Business and Professions Code section 25658(a), the furnishing offense applies to “every person,” not only store clerks or license holders, and the state’s alcohol regulator and local police run decoy operations in which anyone seen handing alcohol to an underage decoy outside a store is arrested, either cited or booked.

You do not have to be the seller

Subdivision (a) makes it a misdemeanor for anyone to sell, furnish, or give alcohol to a person under 21, or to cause that to happen. Buying beer inside and handing it to the person who asked you in the parking lot is furnishing. Subdivision (c) of the same statute even describes violating subdivision (a) “by purchasing any alcoholic beverage for”(c) a person under 21, and the California Supreme Court has said that language covers “the buyer-by-proxy and shoulder tap scenarios” (In re Jennings (2004) 34 Cal.4th 254). Nothing in subdivision (a) limits the crime to licensees or store employees.

The prosecution does not have to prove you knew the person was under 21 (In re Jennings). You can, however, raise a mistake about age: the jury instruction for subdivision (a) says a defendant is not guilty if they “reasonably and actually believed” the person was at least 21 (CALCRIM No. 2962). Whether a belief was reasonable depends on the facts.

How a shoulder tap sting works

The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) describes “shoulder tap” activity as minors standing outside of a liquor store, market or gas station and asking adults to buy them alcohol. In its Decoy Shoulder Tap Program, run with local law enforcement, a minor decoy under the direct supervision of officers asks adults outside ABC-licensed stores to buy alcohol, and any person seen furnishing alcohol to the minor decoy is arrested (either cited or booked) for violating section 25658(a).

The statute authorizes this. Subdivision (f) lets peace officers use people under 21 to catch licensees, their employees or agents, or other persons who sell or furnish alcoholic beverages to minors(f), and it makes a decoy who buys or tries to buy alcohol under a peace officer’s direction immune from prosecution for that attempt. The commentary to CALCRIM No. 2962 notes that the California Supreme Court has approved police use of underage decoys to investigate sales to minors, and that a Court of Appeal decision, People v. Figueroa (1999) 68 Cal.App.4th 1409, held a criminal defendant may not defend on the ground that police failed to follow the administrative regulations on decoys.

The penalty

A conviction for furnishing under subdivision (a) carries a $1,000 fine, and the statute bars suspending any part of it. It also requires at least 24 hours of community service, served outside your working and school hours (section 25658(e)(2)). If the person you bought for was not a decoy and their drinking leads to great bodily injury or death, the more serious subdivision (c) offense applies instead.

If this happened to you

Being asked, rather than offering, does not change the elements, and neither does not knowing the person was working with police. What matters is the evidence: whether you actually handed over an alcoholic beverage, what the decoy looked like and said, and what the officers saw and wrote down. The Law Offices of David S. Chesley can go through the citation and police report with you. Call (800) 755-5174 to discuss your case.