Downtown watering holes charged for serving to minors, but D.A.
wants to work with the businesses
San Benito’s D.A. has charged three Hollister bars with
identical counts of serving to minors and unfair business
practices, but the prosecutor says he’s not
”
out to get
”
the popular watering holes.
Rather, said District Attorney John Sarsfield, he wants to work
with the establishments to make sure they never serve to minors
again, not even accidentally.
Downtown watering holes charged for serving to minors, but D.A. wants to work with the businesses
San Benito’s D.A. has charged three Hollister bars with identical counts of serving to minors and unfair business practices, but the prosecutor says he’s not “out to get” the popular watering holes.
Rather, said District Attorney John Sarsfield, he wants to work with the establishments to make sure they never serve to minors again, not even accidentally.
“We’re not looking to put anyone out of business,” he said. “We just want this habit of selling to minors to absolutely never happen again.”
The three downtown bars that allegedly served to minors and allowed minors on the premises are Pancho’s Mexican Restaurant and San Benito Hotel, both on Fourth Street, and the Whiskey Creek Saloon, on Fifth Street. The briefs filed in the county courts say San Benito Hotel and Whiskey Creek served to minors during the Hollister Independence Day Biker Rally, and Pancho’s allegedly served a minor several months later on Oct. 18.
Sarsfield said the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control wanted to charge the bars criminally, but that he changed the charges from criminal felonies to civil ones so that the bar owners can come up with a plan of action.
“After fulfilling the injunctions [which call for plans to keep booze away from minors], they just have to pay a fine and go back to business,” Sarsfield added.
The briefs from Sarsfield’s office call for fines not exceeding $10,000 for each bar owner. But Sarsfield believes that when the cases are processed, the owners could receive only perfunctory fines of $2,500 or so.
Bar owner Carolyn Rivers of Whiskey Creek admits that in her case, a minor had used a fake I.D. – a very good one – but that it was the first violation they’ve had in 15 years and after nine biker rallies.
“We always card everybody, sometimes two or three times if I haven’t seen them in a long time,” Rivers said. “It happened. One slip after 15 years. I think that’s a pretty good record.”
Bondy Boscacci, the owner of San Benito Hotel, was not available for comment. However, Maria Jimenez, who with her husband Manuel owns the newly remodeled Pancho’s Mexican Restaurant on the corner of Fourth and East streets, adamantly denied the charges.
“We have never served minors at our bar,” she said. “We always I.D. them. The bartenders know better than that. I don’t know where this is coming from.”
Speaking from a booth in her brightly appointed restaurant, Jimenez explained that the alleged incident that occurred in her establishment in October was something of a slip-up, but that no minors were served. After she was served with the papers from the D.A.’s office Tuesday, Jimenez said she called the bartender who had been on duty that night and found out a 20-year-old woman had walked into the bar that evening looking for a friend. When the bartender discovered she was only 20, she was sent out the door.
According to Jimenez, the very moment the young woman walked out the door was the same moment police officers were cruising by.
“They saw her walking out of the bar,” Jimenez said, exasperated.
The bartender on duty that night no longer works at Pancho’s. The Jimenez’ started renovating their restaurant/bar in the summer of 2004, and reopened it just six months ago. From the start, the spanking clean cantina was a hit with local partiers who had become disenchanted with the few other local bars in town – or vice versa. The family runs the restaurant as well as the bar, and the two areas are joined, sharing a common wall and mid-entry, with the bar being most visible from the corner of Fourth and East streets.
Maria Jimenez hopes their hard work isn’t all for naught, in light of the civil charges brought against them.
“It took us a year and a half to get the place going,” she said. “It was trashed, completely trashed. We put so much money in it.”
According to Sarsfield, the family doesn’t have a lot to worry about.
“We just want a good plan in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said. “This is a way of making that happen. We’re not interested in the [fine] money.”
Sarsfield added that more charges could soon be filed against other bars in town. He declined to specify when that would occur or what bars were being investigated.
“All I can say is more are coming,” he said.
