2017-12-07 Liquor Adjudication Board Minutes

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Smith: Second. Ms. Gifffin moved that the Licensee in Case No. 2017-016, be assessed a penalty in the amount of $1,000 with $500 suspended for one year from the date of service of the Decision and Order, on the condition that there are no similar violations to Rule 5-2, and that $500 is to be paid within 30 days upon receipt of the Decision and Order; seconded by Mr. Smith. Fuke: We can discuss the specific penalty. Any questions of Mr. Gonzalez? Giffin: Mr. Gonzalez, is what you said earlier, is that why it's part of the Rule or the law that even when liquor is not being dispensed, there must be a person there? Gonzalez: To answer it simply, yes. But, I have to acknowledge that the Rule itself and the wording about having a person on premise whenever it's open even if liquor is not being sold, is under evaluation. We are trying to determine whether or not that is still relevant in today's times. In this case, I want to make this distinction. The Licensee is not a restaurant. They are a Dispenser General. They are not required to have 30 percent of their sales be food sales. If this were a restaurant, and they serve food as their designation and the "alcohol sales" is in support of that, we would consider them not having to have a person in active charge but they can remain open as a restaurant if they were not to have liquor sales. They are a Dispenser General in this case, so it's a little different. That being said, they do serve heavy pupus, food. The only thing is that they're not saying they're going to have 30 percent of their sales be food. They're a burger place. That's the flip -side. So, can't they continue to sell burgers and lock up their cooler? We are looking at that, maybe having to amend the Rule to be more flexible. Takase: Let me take it one step further. They tried to comply with the law. When the investigator went in, they had signs up saying no liquor service available. To that, we'll give them some credit. But, the fact that they had no managers anymore, which has been going on about a week, we felt they couldn't make that their permanent method of operation. They needed to get somebody in right away. They had failed to do that. We have allowed a Licensee that passed where for some reason you lose a manager on duty that's sick or whatever. They could put up a sign saying liquor sales are being suspended and we would give them the benefit of the doubt. But in this case where the investigator asked them if they could get somebody to come in, he was told that they couldn't because they didn't have any managers, either they left or were fired. Fuke: Have they rectified the problem? Gonzalez: They did. Takase: Yes, now they have. Gonzalez: Immediately after being notified of that, they added at least three people to the list. I agree with the Director. In this situation the Rule as written worked to catch the type of situation it was designed for. It wasn't a spur of the moment or an emergency situation. DECEMBER 7, 2017 - LIQUOR ADJUDICATION BOARD MINUTES 24