Posted on 06/17/2002 2:59:17 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Beer sales facing the penalty box at Nationwide
Monday, June 17, 2002
Steve Stephens
Dispatch Metro Columnist
While hockey fans in the major-league town of Detroit celebrate a Stanley Cup, fans in Columbus should ponder the potential fallout of minor-league law enforcement.
Cops and liquor agents caught vendors at Nationwide Arena selling beer to an underage, undercover informant at a Blue Jackets game Feb. 9, said Julie Ehrhart, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Investigative Unit of the Department of Public Safety.
Unfortunately for beer drinkers and hockey fans, the arena (partially owned by The Dispatch Printing Company) had been stung twice before.
Under state law, the third conviction in 12 months -- a liquor-control hat trick -- nets a mandatory suspension or revocation of the site's liquor permit. One liquor lawyer said such a violation normally results in at least a 60-day suspension.
"Nationwide has gone to a tremendous amount of effort to curb any possibility of sales to underage drinkers,'' said Marc E. Myers, attorney for Midwest Sportservice, which operates concessions at the arena.
"Obviously Nationwide, the Blue Jackets and Midwest Sportservice have no interest in selling beer to underage drinkers,'' Myers said.
But a motivated paid informant, aided and abetted by the cops, can score a beer just about anywhere.
After the most recent violation, the arena agreed to extensive training for all its alcohol vendors.
More than 1,600 were trained by agents from the Ohio Department of Public Safety, Myers said.
The arena even agreed to turn over the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of the vendors to the Ohio Department of Public Safety, Ohio Department of Liquor Control and Columbus Police vice squad. In addition, the arena instituted a policy of carding everyone who buys beer at a Blue Jackets game and of ejecting anyone under 21 who tries, Myers said.
"It irritates people and really slows down the beer lines, but that's what we felt we had to do,'' he said.
After being carded, one AARP-eligible fan was ready to drop the gloves. The grandfather, who called me to complain, said he was turned away from the beer counter because he wasn't carrying his driver's license.
"That's the stupidest policy I ever heard of,'' he said. "I had to get a friend who's even older than me to buy the beer -- and they carded him. Fortunately, he had his license with him.''
This madness is inevitable when liquor cops go after violations with the tenacity and discretion of New Rome police going after unbuckled seat belts.
Nationwide has never been accused of selling a beer to an underage drinker who is not a police informant. But that doesn't really matter.
I doubt liquor officials truly fear that minors are lining up to buy $50 hockey tickets on the off chance of scoring a $5 Bud Light.
"If I'm an underage drinker, there are a lot of places I can get beer a whole lot easier and a whole lot cheaper,'' Myers noted.
Nevertheless, "No matter what the venue is, if you have a permit, you are subject to being investigated,'' Ehrhart said.
The most recent violation at Nationwide netted liquor bureaucrats a concession they'd long been seeking -- an agreement to stop serving alcohol 10 minutes into the third period. The curfew has nothing to do with underage drinking, of course. But the arena wasn't negotiating from a position of strength.
However, the Liquor Control Commission won't have much room for negotiations, either, after a third violation. In fact, I suspect that state officials wish the most recent alleged violation would quietly go away.
Imagine 18,500 hockey fans, including some of the most influential folk in Columbus, learning that Nationwide spigots have been turned off.
That kind of outcome could get no- tolerance enforcement body-checked, especially because more than just hockey fans are at risk. Schottenstein Arena was stung by liquor agents the same night they got Nationwide. Agents allege six violations.
Hearings on both the Nationwide and Schottenstein cases were scheduled this week but have been postponed.
Sports fans, hold on to your hats -- and your beers.
Steve Stephens is a Dispatch Metro columnist. He can be reached at 614- 461-5201 or by e-mail.
Your tax dollars at work. BTW, I have yet to see anybody trashed at a Jackets game. It takes forever to get a beer, and they're five bucks.
Boy you nailed that one! I find entrapment vile in the extreme, and the scum who participate in it even more vile.
On the other hand, it would be kinda interesting to see what these kids look like that are scoring the beer. Do they sport a full beard, Makeup???.
Note the choosen word is Cops, not Police Officers. What exactly can a Police Officer do to Aid to make a seller NOT check the ID??? Does the Police blindfold the seller? Do they point a gun at there head? I wish the author was not so vague on "Aided and Abetted". I think it is just an useless term thrown on by the unhappy journalist.
I understand your point fully, but if (as I previously stated) the checkers were using makeup then it is 100% plausable to check all ids.
$5 12 oz. beers in plastic bottles.......
Cowtown.
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