Sitting in the back seat of a Ford pickup, an 18-year-old New Mexico college student waited anxiously as the truck pulled into the parking lot of Albertsons on Zafarano Drive on Friday afternoon. With $37 in hand, she prepared to walk into the store to purchase alcohol for the first time.

"Your whole life you're told, 'Don't buy alcohol unless you're 21.' You don't do certain things, and I consider myself to be a really good person," she said. "I've never gotten a speeding ticket, never been in trouble."

Several minutes after walking into the store, she said she found the liquor section, picked out a four-pack of Budweiser and walked to a checkout lane with an older male cashier.

He checked her identification, which indicates she is under 21 until 2012, and entered her date of birth into the system.

"I honestly thought he was going to tell me off, or yell at me, and instead he was really nice," she said.

"I handed him the Bud and he was like, 'Let me see that fake ID,' and I was like 'OK, I must be busted,' so I handed it to him and he kind of held it up and compared it to me, and he was like, 'smile,' so I smiled, and then he punched the age in and then I gave him the money and I walked out," she said.

The young woman wasn't out to buy some booze for a party or to drink with friends. She was enlisted to help the Special Investigations Division of the state Department of Public Safety, which enforces liquor compliance statewide.

Friday's sweep, Operation Safe Celebration, took place in Santa Fe, Taos, Albuquerque, Española and Las Vegas.

"What we want is compliance," said SID agent Victor Rodriguez. "We want people to comply. If we have one person sell, that's a great day."

In Santa Fe, six teams spread out to try and hit as many establishments licensed to sell liquor as possible. The minors walked into each business, followed by undercover SID agents and local law enforcement officials, and tried to buy alcohol. If the minors were asked for their IDs, they had to use real ones and had to give clerks or servers their real ages.

At Albertsons, Abie Gallegos entered the minor's birth year as 1981 instead of 1991.

"I can't believe that happened. This is the first time," he told police. "That's very embarrassing. I've been 40-some years with the company."

His error got him a felony referral for selling to a minor, which in New Mexico is a fourth-degree offense punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Gallegos and the store were also given administrative citations, which are tracked by the state liquor board and can result in a suspension or revocation of the business's liquor license.

"There's a lot of hints to assist them in trying to protect themselves," Rodriguez said of store clerks. Vertical ID cards and a computer that asks them to enter the customer's date of birth before alcohol can be purchased are some of the ways they can identify minors.

"Unfortunately, with those mechanisms in place, they still sell to minors," Rodriguez said.

During enforcement operations like Operation Safe Celebration, agents know where the beer is going, Rodriguez pointed out. But, he added, "What if it's not a minor that works for us? Then we don't know where the beer is going. That's the next fatal, that's the next MIP, (minor in possession), that's the problem."

In New Mexico, under the Alcohol Server Education Act, the Alcohol and Gaming Division requires owners of a liquor license, and all employees who serve or sell alcohol, to complete a Certified Alcohol Server program to obtain a server's permit. Selling to a minor can result in a server losing a permit.

The operation continued on to Club Tequila, Applebee's, Pizza Hut, Bumble Bee's Baja Grill On Cerrillos Road and the Blue Corn Cafe. All refused to sell to the underage customer. The Blue Corn Cafe had just been busted by another team minutes earlier, however, and the Bumble Bee's Baja Grill location downtown sold to another minor.

At some places, the server tried to do the math to figure out if a minor on Rodriguez's team was 21 — although the license clearly states when she will turn 21. One even took out a calculator. When she went to De Arco Liquors, the teen said the clerk laughed and said, "No, come back in three years."

Another clerk at the store sold to an intoxicated person, however, and was cited for that violation.

At the Olive Garden, the teen walked to the bar and asked the server, George Vaisa, for a "short" Bud Light. He brought her a tall, because they were out of short glasses, and said, "I'm just gonna charge you for a short," without asking for her ID.

"She looked of age," he said.

Later in the night, the teen walked into Adelitas Mexican Restaurant, asked for a table for one and ordered a beer from the server, Virginia Mejia. Again, she didn't get carded.

"She even brought me limes and a cold glass," the teen said. "It's just amazing how easy it is. I never expected it to be this easy."

The second part of the operation involved "shoulder taps," where minors approach adults outside of convenience stores or gas stations and ask them to go in and buy the beer for them. Several gas stations had security guards, but at the last stop of the night for Rodriguez's team, the minor waited outside an Allsup's on Airport Road.

A black SUV pulled up, and when the driver got out, the teen asked him to buy her some beer. He told her to go stand at the corner of the store outside while he made the buy. He walked out with a 12-pack of Bud Light for her and a pack of beer for himself and drove around to where she was standing. The passenger gave her the beer and she gave him $10.

"I've never seen that happen before. Usually they always take the money right away," Rodriguez said. "There's allegations they were making some inappropriate comments to her, so they thought they were going to get more than they bargained for."

And they did. Both the driver, Victor Villa-Diaz, and passenger, Maclovio Villa-Diaz, were given felony referrals and, like the servers at the restaurants, must appear in court.

By the end of the night, of the 51 businesses visited in Santa Fe, nine had sold to minors, said State Police spokesman Lt. Eric Garcia. In Santa Fe, Taos, Albuquerque, Española and Las Vegas combined, 25 businesses sold to the minors.

"We're going to continue these operations. We just had one a few months ago, and the compliance level was really good," Garcia said. "This time, the compliance was not. It's been a long time since we've seen 25 violations in one night."

Garcia said it doesn't take a lot for a clerk to avoid selling to a minor.

"The bottom line is, you have to take the time, you have to take a matter of 15 seconds to ID them, making sure they are of age to purchase liquor," he said. "We want to prevent the opportunity for these kids to drink. There's so many sources out there for a kid to get liquor nowadays. For someone to make a poor decision to sell to them — it doesn't help the issue."

Contact Veronica Cruz at 986-3042 or vcruz@sfnewmexican.com.