St. Louis Cathedral
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
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In the News
Businesses fined for underage alcohol sales
By SCOTT DYER
Advocate staff writer
June 9, 2006
A Baton Rouge bowling alley will lose its liquor license for five days for selling an alcoholic beverage to an underage patron during a recent undercover sting operation.
A convenience store faces the same sanctions.
The liquor-license suspensions for Don Carter’s All Star Lanes, 9829 Airline Highway, and Circle K convenience store, 2564 N. Sherwood Forest Drive, will both begin Tuesday, and run through Saturday.
In addition, both will pay a $1,000 fine, since the underage-sale violations are their second within the past year.
On behalf of Don Carter’s All Star Lanes, attorney Drew Bernard admitted the bowling alley bartender sold an alcoholic beverage to an 18-year-old informant as Alcohol Beverage Control Board investigators conducted a random check on April 28.
Bernard said the bartender is no longer working behind the bar, and said the bowling alley has since implemented a policy that requires patrons who want to purchase alcohol to get stamped with fluorescent ink after getting their IDs checked.
Bernard told the East Baton Rouge Parish ABC Board on Thursday that a bartender who has worked at the bowling alley for 22 years made a mistake and sold alcohol to another 18-year-old informant on Jan. 31.
“Don Carter’s has been in business here for a long time, and we don’t want to garner a reputation as a place kids can go to buy beer,” Bernard said.
He pleaded with the board not to hand down a suspension, noting that it might force league bowlers to competing bowling alleys.
The attorney said until this year, the bowling alley had a near-spotless record in upholding laws governing alcoholic beverage sales in Baton Rouge over the past 24 years.
Board member Scott Wilfong said other establishments facing similar charges for selling to underage patrons had been slapped with suspensions ranging from 14 to 30 days.
“In all due respect, when you say you have a great track record, you don’t,” Wilfong told Bernard.
Wilfong tried unsuccessfully to get the board to suspend the bowling alley’s license for 10 days.
Board member Chiquita Tate said she was satisfied the bowling alley has taken steps to prevent any future alcohol sales to patrons under 21.
Tate’s motion to fine Don Carter’s $1,000 and suspend its liquor sales for five days passed 5-1, with only Marian Harden objecting.
Wilfong said he supported the motion because “Five days is better than no days.”
In a similar case involving Circle K, the board agreed to impose the same $1,000 fine and five-day suspension after hearing that the clerk who sold alcohol to an 18-year-old on May 2 had been terminated.
Circle K spokesman Pat Walsh said his company has implemented several measures to prevent underage alcohol sales, including cash registers that instruct clerks to ask for identification and to punch in patron birthdates for all liquor sales.
Walsh said some clerks bypass the checks by punching in their own birthdates or some fictitious birthdate.
