Per my comment from a while ago, I think what they did was illegal. [1]
If they had simply kicked off users who were likely cops, that would have been legal. That’s what (some) biker bars do.
But they went beyond that and actively misled such users in a way that wasted their time. That amounts to lying to investigators and is illegal.
You can kick people out of your bar for giving off a cop vibe. You can’t keep them around and feed them fake intel on drug deals so they waste their time.
You can pull your shade down to keep people from looking in your window. You can’t make shadow puppets of a homicide with the intent to get the cop outside to investigate a spurious lead.