Police cite stores in cigarette sting
The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety cited a dozen businesses recently for selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors who were decoys in a department sting operation.
A spokesman for the department said letters were mailed to Sunnyvale merchants the first week of May informing them that the department would be conducting a buy/bust operation.
He said the operation was conducted on May 30 between 5 and 9 p.m., and involved six officers and 14 high school students who acted as decoys.
The spokesman said the decoys were split into two groups; one attempted to purchase cigarettes and the other attempted to purchase alcohol.
He said that of the 88 businesses where decoys attempted to buy tobacco, three made sales to the students. Of the 46 locations where alcohol purchases were attempted, nine sold to the students.
The department cited and released the suspects at the scene.
Mental-health plan gets county's OK
Most of Santa Clara County Supervisor Jim Beall's proposed mental-health jail-diversion plan won the endorsement of the Board of Supervisors June 4.
The supervisors voted for the sections of the plan that don't require an outlay of cash, including increased education for law officers about mental health problems, expanded use of the sobering station at the old county jail and improved follow-up of mentally ill defendants who have been released from custody. Creation of a Mental Health Mobile Crisis Unit and expansion of day-care dropoff centers for adult males was put off until county budget hearings the week of June 17.
Beall developed his proposal with a blue-ribbon committee of representatives from the courts, law enforcement, the jails and mental health agencies, contending that too many people who need mental health treatment are put in jail.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 12, 1996.
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