At least 18 out of 24 campus area bars, tailgate booths and stores were cited for selling alcoholic beverages to people under the age of 21, during a citywide sweep for Columbus area liquor violations from Sept. 4-8, said Lt. Mike Spiert of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.
The Ohio Department of Public Safety Investigative Unit working with the Columbus Police Department and the Franklin County Stop Teen-agers’ Opportunity to Purchase program cited 44 establishments with liquor permits and arrested 59 people for underage drinking in Columbus with many of the of the establishments located near the Ohio State campus, said Julie Ehrhart, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Safety Investigative Unit.
After the university district experienced riots last spring, many people suspected students were attracted to large off-campus parties because there were not enough bars to go to anymore. With so many citations being delivered on Sept. 8, is it possible even more bar owners will be forced to shut off their taps and close their doors?
“It is entirely possible that there could be some suspensions in the upcoming months,” said Chuck SanFilippo, executive director of the State of Ohio Liquor Control Commission. “If anybody has had three violations in two years that is a suspension for sure. That is mandated by law.”
It may take several months for many of the establishments to receive their penalties and sentences, SanFilippo said.
Underage drinking and liquor citations are nothing new to the campus area and Columbus, but the number of underage sales cases that the Franklin County Commission has received in the last five months is increasing, said SanFilippo. The commission has heard 152 underage sales cases involving 144 different permit holders, he said.
Most of the arrests and citations in the campus area occurred on Saturday beginning at 10:12 a.m. at the tailgates on Lane Avenue before the OSU football game against Akron.
Citations and arrests continued involving many campus institutions, including Panini’s, The Cornerstone, Chipotle, Not Al’s Too, Buffalo Wild Wings (formerly known as BW-3’s), Larry’s, Quarters, and The Northberg. Several underage drinking charges and arrests were also made on various campus streets, alleys and parking lots, according to a news release from the Ohio Deptartment of Public Safety.
Spiert said police came to campus on Sept. 8 to make a statement for the rest of the football season.
“At the first football game we knew all the students weren’t there, but our focus isn’t necessarily on the students but on the providers of alcohol in that area,” Spiert said. “We wanted to let businesses and everybody with a liquor permit know we will be there checking and making sure they are complying with the law.”
Larry’s Bar at 2040 N. High St., which had not had a violation since 1967, was cited for not requesting the ID of a person ordering an alcoholic beverage, said Becky Brooke, a bartender at Larry’s. That person turned out to be an underage informant for the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
The bartender who made the sale to an underage person was fined $500 and the bar itself was fined $1,600 by the Liquor Control Department, Brooke said.
“The fact that we have to be afraid that we might go to jail if we don’t do our jobs is asinine,” Brooke said. “We shouldn’t have to be everybody’s parents.”
Larry’s is strictly 21-and-over, yet they are having problems with underage people sneaking into the bar and having drinks bought for them; it is difficult to stop when the bar is very busy and they cannot see everyone who comes into the bar, Brooke said.
“We don’t want underage drinking to go on and we don’t want the bar to get shut down,” Brooke said. “You don’t think about it when you are 19 that people will lose their jobs and lose their business. I wish younger people understand that if they come in here and people get busted, this place will be shut down. And we have been here for 65 years.”
The penalty for selling alcohol to a person under the age of 21 is a first-degree misdemeanor, which is up to $1,000 fine and six months in jail, Ehrhart said. Establishments with violations are judged on a case-to-case basis where first offenses can bring anywhere from a one-day suspension or $100 fine to 10-day suspension or $1,000 fine. With the second offense the fine and suspension doubles. Three violations in two years is an automatic suspension, SanFilippo said.
The Buffalo Wild Wings at 7 E. Woodruff Ave. was also cited for serving to someone underage, however, the bartender involved does not remember the incident that liquor control described when they came 45 minutes later to make the citation, said manager Tarsa Favata.
The ODPS Ivestigative Unit uses underage confidential informants who are paid to go into an establishment and order an alcoholic beverage using their real IDs, Ehrhart said.
“They said they sent someone in but the bartender doesn’t remember the person, and they (liquor control) never showed the person to our bartender or anything,” Favata said.
Buffalo Wild Wings was last cited sometime this past winter, Favata said.
The Northberg Tavern located at 2084 N. High St., which was also cited for underage drinking in the Sept. 8. sweep, changed its policy into a 21-and-over bar last week. Bar manager Russ Crane would not comment on the citation but said the decision was made duringthe last school year.
“We decided to make The Northberg 21-and-over because a lot of the south campus bars were closing, and many 18-to-20-year-olds were flocking to The Northberg,” Crane said. “It was a proactive measure against underage drinking at The Northberg.”
Crane said that people who were under 21 were only 10 percent of The Northberg’s attendance and would not affect the bar’s business.
“A liquor license is not a right. It is a privilege,” SanFillippo said. “If you get a liquor license it is your responsiblity to make sure no one underage is drinking at your establishment, period, whether they buy it there or someone there gets it and gives it to them.”
Panini’s Assistant Manager Greg Gould would not comment on the bars recent liquor citation, but said in an earlier interview that one out of seven underage patrons have beers taken by bartenders on any given night during the school year.
“The fun of underage drinking is that you are not supposed to be doing it,” Gould said. “It is a thrill. And I don’t think you are ever going to deter a young kid trying to find a thrill.”
“I would have hoped with all the publicity and efforts we’ve made in the campus area that on the first football game of the season we would not have been able to go to 18 places, all permit holders and have an underage person purchase beer,” Spiert said. “But it happened, and we were shocked.”
The STOP program is funded by a grant from Franklin County and began in April 2001. The program will last for a year and will then be assesed before another grant is applied for, Spiert said.
“Based on what the program looks like now, I think it is a needed investigative tool,” Spiert said.
