Jonathan Bach | Statesman Journal

Wochit

Jae C. Hong, AP

This story has been updated to accurately reflect the number of retailers the Oregon Liquor Control Commission visited in December.

State regulators caught more than a dozen recreational pot retailers — including five in the Salem-Keizer area — selling marijuana to minors in the past month.

Such "unacceptable" results have the Oregon Liquor Control Commission scheduling more frequent stings than originally planned and may bring harsher penalties against retailers who state officials earlier thought would be more careful to follow the rules.

Under state law, only customers age 21 and older can buy marijuana.

The OLCC in December conducted a series of stings employing volunteer minors and state inspectors to see whether employees at marijuana retailers were checking IDs before they let customers into the shop or buy marijuana.

Volunteers were all between 18 and 20 years old, with some coming from police cadet programs, OLCC spokesman Mark Pettinger said. They would enter the stores and ask for pre-rolled joints.

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Initial results from the stings were positive: Retailers in central Oregon passed with flying colors.

But new results released Wednesday show that 16 retailers from other parts of the state failed the tests, with the highest number, five, in the Salem-Keizer area. Inspectors went to 23 Salem-area retailers, meaning the area's compliance rate was 78 percent.

Regulators identified the local retailers that failed as:

7 Leaf Collective at 1026 Commercial St. NE in Salem

Herbal Remedies at 3940 Commercial St. SE in Salem

Hi Cascade at 5070 Commercial St. SE in Salem

Cannabis Re-Leaf at 1330 12th St. SE in Salem

The Grass Hut II at 4085 Cherry Ave. NE in Keizer

Jered DeCamp, co-owner of Herbal Remedies, said the employee who sold marijuana to a minor has been fired.

"It's a disgrace to my company," he said Wednesday. "We strive to uphold a better standard."

MOLLY J. SMITH / Statesman Journal

As a result of the sting, all Herbal Remedies employees are now required to enter customers' drivers license information into a computer, which will tell them whether the customer is of age, instead of just eyeballing IDs when customers walk in.

"That way there's no questions asked," DeCamp said.

Problematic retailers can expect repeat visits, just like alcohol retailers, Pettinger said.

Among the more serious violations is unintentionally selling marijuana to a minor, which can net the retailer either a $1,650 fine or a 10-day license suspension. Pettinger says all of the retailers will probably be charged with that.

If a retailer racks up enough violations — of which there different degrees of severity — the state can revoke its license. It works much like a points system on someone's driving record, Pettinger said.

During the December operations, inspectors visited 86 marijuana retailers throughout Oregon and caught the 16 illegally selling marijuana to minors.

"These overall results are unacceptable,” Steve Marks, executive director of the OLCC, said in a statement. "One of the basic tenets of Measure 91 is the protection of children by discouraging their use of marijuana."

Measure 91 legalized recreational pot in 2014.

"Oregonians who voted for legalizing recreational marijuana implicitly told the cannabis industry to abide by public safety laws," Marks said. "Clearly they’re not, and we need to continue this type of enforcement activity."

Regulators had planned to visit every retailer in Oregon at least once a year. But thanks to the "less-than-satisfactory" compliance, inspectors will be checking in more frequently and sooner than previously planned, said Pettinger, the spokesman. Inspectors will be doing more scattered operations around Oregon before the month is out, he said.

"We really expected the industry was going to do much better at this," he said. "We thought this was almost like a gimme for them."

Regulators have their work cut out for them as they attempt to inspect every one of the more than 500 retailers licensed to operate in the state.

Still, the number of pot retailers pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of locations that sell alcohol, from bars to restaurants to stores.

Pettinger says the compliance rate for those places refusing to sell alcohol to minors is 78 percent statewide as of June 30, 2017, though alcohol-related stings are somewhat random due to the sheer number of licensees.

Pot sales have generated more than $122.5 million in state tax revenue since collections started in early 2016, according to the latest estimates from the Oregon Department of Revenue.

But Oregon retailers' poor compliance rates "contribute to the idea that there aren’t the safeguards and there’s not the trustworthiness in the marijuana sellers," said Jim Moore, director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

Gov. Kate Brown has been protective of Oregon's legal marijuana market, especially after a move last week by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to revoke Obama-era protections for states like Oregon with legal pot. Brown said at the time Oregon's industry has created more than 19,000 jobs.

The governor's staff did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Legalization opponent Kevin Sabet said, "The state — and the relentless pot industry it defends — has failed in its promise to keep pot out of the hands of kids. Now they're getting it from drug dealers as well as the state."

Sabet, president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a national anti-legalization group, called for reforms to "curb the influence" of an industry that produces marijuana that is much more potent today than past variants.

Marks, the OLCC executive director, said: "This is a wake-up call to our licensed retailers."