Citations Against Store Clerks Accused of Illegal Beer Sales to be Dismissed

Citations against three store clerks accused of illegally selling alcohol to a minor in a recent undercover investigation are set to be dismissed.
25 year old Langed Bassem Nabil Samir of the Alexandria Discount Beer and Tobacco store on Nashville Highway; 56 year old Allison Ferguson of Smithville, an employee of Mapco Express on East Broad Street, Smithville; and 42 year old Areceli Soto Godinez of Smithville, owner of Nicole’s Market on Short Mountain Highway appeared in DeKalb County General Sessions Court Thursday.
Under negotiated settlements with the District Attorney General’s Office, each case is to be dismissed provided the defendants pay their court costs and have no further incidents of this kind within a certain period of time. Ferguson’s case has already been dismissed. Citations are to be dismissed after 60 days for Samir and after six months in the Godinez case.
The case against 32 year old Jennifer Sims of McMinnville, an employee of the Discount Tobacco Store on West Broad Street, Smithville across from the Dairy Queen has been postponed until December 10 to give her time to hire an attorney.
The Alexandria Beer Board Tuesday night imposed a $500 fine against the owner of the Alexandria Discount Beer and Tobacco store for the violation of the town’s beer ordinance. Samir, the clerk who actually made the sale, was cited by the Alexandria Police Department after he illegally sold beer to an underage operative during an undercover investigation on September 22. Samir admitted to making the illegal sale of beer but claims he made a mistake in reading the birth date on the identification presented to him by the customer (undercover operative) who is 20 years old.
Alexandria Police Chief Mark Collins said while he believes the store clerk may have made an honest mistake, the illegal sale of beer was made from the store. The same underage operative tried to buy beer at other stores in Alexandria on the same day but he was turned away.
The undercover investigation was conducted jointly by the Alexandria Police Department, Smithville Police Department, and the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department using the same underage operative.
The Smithville Beer Board is scheduled to meet Tuesday, November 3 at 5:30 p.m. to take up the cases against Mapco Express and the Discount Tobacco Store . The beer board met on the issue October 13 but delayed action on possible punishment against the two stores after managers at both businesses claim the clerks who made the transactions mistakenly entered into their computers the wrong date of birth from the ID card given to them by the customer (underage operative). The managers said they could produce receipts and video evidence of the transactions to back up their claims. But the same underage operative tried to buy beer at other stores in Smithville on the same day and was turned away.
The Mapco manager said Ferguson had worked there since the 1990’s and had never been accused of this before. “Allison has done probably the best of anybody I have ever seen at controlling all sales,” he said.
Some board members also wanted to delay action until after the cases came up in court against the store clerks.