|
Smith: Any opposition?
<br />There was no opposition by the Board Members.
<br />Smith: Hearing none, motion carried.
<br />The motion was carried unanimously.
<br />Smith: Mr. Armstrong, prior to assessing a penalty, you may proceed with your presentation
<br />of the circumstances surrounding the violation. If you'd like to, go ahead.
<br />Armstrong: Thank you very much. First of all, the investigator, Stephen Frendo did a very
<br />thorough job in his report. I don't know if you all had a chance to read the report, but as you
<br />read on, you can see that we did not have a person (in charge) on that Monday when he came
<br />in. We immediately addressed the situation because we take it very seriously. We immediately
<br />took care of the situation and had every employee, that means everyone there, go to the class
<br />and get the card so we would be, certainly, covered at all times. What I believe happened is,
<br />there was an employee that was let go the previous week, I believe he called, maybe
<br />anonymously. It's odd that the following Monday the inspector would show up at this place with
<br />this guy knowing that the Manager would be off that day. He had a card and the Manager had
<br />a card. I do not, I'm not trying to get out of anything. I'm just saying it's my responsibility as
<br />General Manager, to make sure we were covered; but I was definitely caught off guard on that
<br />one, didn't think anything like that would've happened.
<br />Armstrong: But, the guy was captured on tape stealing from us, and we had no choice but to
<br />let him go. His comments were 'I'm going to call the Liquor Board because I didn't steal beer.'
<br />He didn't get it. He thought we caught him stealing beer, which we didn't even suspect him of,
<br />but that's what he was basically admitting to us. We thought 'oh, he was stealing beer, too.'
<br />And he goes 'no, no, no, you have no proof of that.' But, we did catch him red-handed
<br />scooping poke out and taking it home. We cannot have an employee like that and we had to
<br />let him go. That's stealing, we didn't prosecute him in any which way, and business is tough
<br />enough. We can't have food disappearing and this has been going on, evidently, for a while.
<br />So, we were investigating on our own. I believe he called and maybe made an anonymous
<br />complaint or tip, I don't know. It's odd that the next day, Stephen Frendo showed up there on
<br />that Monday. Yes, Sonia was off that day. The guy knew that Sonia would be off, too.
<br />Stephen didn't. He is very thorough.
<br />Armstrong: If you had a chance to read it, I think it even says in here, that we've already sent
<br />everybody to the class. Everybody has got a card now. We actually had them delivered by,
<br />think, Kalani Mills delivered them to the employees. It took a while, and I even checked
<br />because we didn't have the cards, and the Department said we're approved. All the people
<br />passed the class, they just didn't have the cards yet. We could have them work, which we did.
<br />As Umekes, we have no previous violations and we immediately took care of the situation.
<br />I apologize for being caught in the trap of not having somebody there at the time. We fired the
<br />guy the week before. We were in a violation, I admit to that. We did take care of the situation.
<br />That's all I really have. As I said to Brandon and you guys just now, Stephen Frendo, and I
<br />don't even know this guy, but he did a very thorough job of investigating.
<br />FEBRUARY 20, 2020 -LIQUOR ADJUDICATION BOARD MINUTES 4
<br />
|