State liquor commission undercover stings plunge

If you have a liquor license in Oregon, the likelihood that you will get a visit from an underage decoy working for the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission plummeted by 85% over the past 12 months.

The commission conducted an average of 112 sting operations per month in 2023 and 2024. In May of this year, however, the commission ran 44 operations. In April, only 18.

Officials at the $200 million-a-year state agency say the decline is the result of reassigning staffers who ran the decoy operations to a program to convert OLCC licensing operations online. And the actual decoys—part-time 18- to 20-year-olds who pose as buyers—dwindled from 21 a year ago to 15 today, according to OLCC spokesman John Brady.

Asked about the stark drop-off in sting operations over the past year, the agency gave a puzzling reply.

“We do not share your characterization that there was a drastic drop,” Brady wrote in an email.

The commission conducts random checks as well as targeted operations prompted by community complaints. So far in 2026, the agency has made 125 decoy visits, down from 845 over the same period in 2025. It says it is rebuilding its undercover program and, by 2027, plans to have the same number of minor decoy operations as in 2025.

In the more than 4,000 decoy operations the OLCC has conducted since May 2022, more than 1 in 5 (21.7%) resulted in license holders selling alcohol to a minor without checking ID, records show.

So far this year, the establishments sold liquor to the underage operatives 15% of the time. OLCC’s goal is to bring that rate down to 10%, Brady says.

No license holder has permanently lost its license for selling to a minor in at least five years. They may only lose their license if caught selling to minors four times in two years, according to Oregon administrative rules.

Five restaurants and breweries failed their test three times since 2022. One of them, Silver Moon Brewing in Bend, sold to minors three times between September and November 2023. On a fourth sting operation in February 2025, Silver Moon carded the undercover minor.

So far this year, Chely’s Sports Bar and Grill in Salem and Beaver’s University Market in Corvallis have failed two undercover inspections. Three weeks ago, Taylor’s Sausage Country Store in Cave Junction failed one.

Terry Taylor, the owner of Taylor’s Sausage, says an employee inspected the license of the decoy operative, who had just turned 20, but did her math incorrectly.

Taylor’s Sausage was given three options: pay a fine, face a short-term license suspension, or buy an automatic ID scanner, he said. Taylor bought the ID scanner.