Depends on his definition of what "live" is. Is it currently in a running tank or recently taken out of a running tank (if so, how long and what conditions is it kept in). How deep is/was the sand bed?
As an example, if one were to remove a large 6" Deep sand bed and put them into buckets, it would probably foul the sand mixing it up like that. Critters that live in the sand bed live at different depths, and mixing up top sand dwellers and crushing them down into the bottom of a bucket will kill them and lead to things like ammonia spikes. On the other had, if it was a 1" sand bed in the display and just taken out, it would probably be pretty good live sand.