Minnesotas Largest Candy Store owner charged with selling booze-filled candy without a license

Candy crushed.The owner of Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store found himself in a sticky situation after he was charged with selling booze-filled candy without a liquor license.Robert Wagner, 66, was hit with a gross misdemeanor charge of selling liquor without a license or permit at his shop in Jordan — roughly 42 miles from St.

Paul — according to a criminal complaint filed Oct.27 and obtained by MPR News.After an anonymous tip, agents with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division went undercover at the store in July, where they found liquor-filled candy for sale despite the business not having a license to sell alcohol.Among the treats an agent bought during the operation were chocolate-covered brandy cherries with a 7.3% brandy concentration and chocolates with a whiskey syrup center that measured 3.58% alcohol by volume, the outlet reported.The store is also accused of selling “some to a minor child without checking the minor’s ID,” the complaint states.There was no special procedure for buying the alcohol-filled treats, and customers could buy them the same way as any other candy, according to the complaint.Wagner allegedly acknowledged the store lacked a liquor license — though he said he believed the shop could still legally sell the liquor-filled candy it had in stock.The 66-year-old said his aim is “to have every conceivable candy, even if it doesn’t represent much in sales,” insisting that stocking the spiked treats was never meant as a way to illegally sell alcohol.“We have suckers that have scorpions in them.

We don’t sell a lot of them, but we got it,” Wagner told Fox 9 on Tuesday outside his shop.“The candies that have the spirits inside of them.We want those as well.”Wagner said his reading of the law allowed him to stock the candy, which he’s carried for so long he doesn’t know how many years it’s been on the shelves.He said the tip came from a customer who never raise...