I'm just glad we had cameras. Three views that showed the two guys not liking each other.
Both of the prosecutions witnesses lied and I proved it with video.
No video and I'd have no chance.

The city is small and the council doesn't like bars. They're fine(not really but they have to put up) with the likes of Chilis and restaurants with small bars in them, but we free standing bars are under fire.

Our city has a Liquor Authority. It's a body of people (7) who hear citations on a civil basis and determine if the bar should be closed or fined under the citation. My case is one of three that happened in a two month period. Sounds like a lot, but we had no citations for 18 months before that. Guess they decided they needed to see us more often.

First one was overserving (serving persons prohibited). Overserving is when the bartender serves someone who is visibly intoxicated. The law states that the police must SEE you serve someone who is drunk-but tha's never stopped the cops from just writing a ticket if they do a walk through and see someone who is drunk. The drunk person could have water sitting in front of them, but since they are at a bar AND drunk, to the cops, it means we served them after they had too much.

Second was mine.

Third is a case that even the city prosecutor dismissed. A patron has a few beers (4 in two hours but he weights 260+) and decides he wants to pick up food from Chilis. Calls Chilis, orders and is told his food would be ready in 20. He leaves our place in 20, gets in his car (he's fine at the time he leaves us) and drives across the street to Chilis. From there he's going to drive home. Bartender at Chili's calls the cops and tells them there is a drink guy at his bar. Cops come but wait OUTSIDE for patron to come out, put his food in his car then get into the drivers side and insert the key. Suddenly 4 cops surround him, get him out of the car. He refuses to blow or do a Field's in the parking lot at Chili's (with diners watching through the windows) so they haul him into the shop and he allows blood to be taken. Slap him with a DUI. Then a few WEEKS later they come over and serve US with a Serving Persons Prohibited ticket. By then our video has looped (digital) so we have no way of proving he was fine looking when he left.

Now, the Liquor Authority is not the City Court. LA is a different body and answers to no one. If the Mayor sat in on the monthly meetings and didn't agree with the LA there is nothing he could do. So they have absolute power. There's is like Civil Court. They don't send someone to jail, but they can and do shut down your biz for as long as they want.

Last Thursday in March we sat in fron of them on the first overserving case and we had clear cut video showing the girl was perfectly fine and dancing at her last service. She was on a broth diet that she didn't tell anyone about and about 20 minutes after her last service she passed out. BUT at the time of last service, she was perfectly fine. Criminal case, we won. Civil (LA) case, we lost. Even with video evidence.
We also sat on the Failure To Report A Disturbance (mine-not yet heard criminallyat that time) and they found against us then too. Same video that we used in yesterday's trial, but the LA said I should have called anyway.

Monday we will go again to present evidence about the Chili's thing.
After they find us guilty on that one, they will tell us how long we will be closed for.
Could be 60 days. Could put us out of biz.

And that's what they want in the first place.

If I ever own a bar again (yeah, right) it will be in an unincorporated part of town with only the understaffed Sheriff's office to respond. I know that has it's risks, but I'll take the chance over what I have now.

__________________
Ginny in Denver-ish
78 300SD, 265K (mine)