Two Oakland police officers squeezed behind the bar of The Lodge, a saloon on Piedmont Avenue, as if looking for hidden drugs or guns. 

As late-afternoon customers watched — one filming the scene with a cellphone — a bearded officer shined his flashlight into liquor bottles, holding them up to the light as he kept an eye on the drinkers watching him.

“We’re just curious, what are you looking for?” asked a woman sitting at the bar.

“It’s a bar check for ABC,” he said, a smirk crossing his face, referring to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. “We’re OPD, so we do bar checks and make sure the licenses are good and make sure they’re not serving alcohol that has bugs in it.”

“Oh, OK,” she replied.