SNOW HILL – The sale of alcohol to a minor resulted in a $2,000 fine and a one-week suspension of alcoholic beverage sales at an Ocean City restaurant.
On Wednesday the Worcester County Board of License Commissioners (BLC) fined Flavors of Italy $2,000 and suspended the restaurant’s license for one week. Both actions came after an employee in the restaurant served alcohol to a minor.
“There is no excuse,” said Flavors of Italy’s Shlomo Bitton. “I do apologize.”
Attorney Joe Moore admitted the restaurant had served a minor but said that the server was a J-1 student who’d only been working at Flavors of Italy for three days. Moore stressed that the establishment, which has held a license to sell alcohol since 2000, was a family restaurant.
“It is an Italian restaurant serving predominantly pizza and spaghetti,” he said, adding that was why it had a beer and wine license instead of a beer, wine and liquor license.
Moore acknowledged that Flavors of Italy had sold alcohol to minors on two previous occasions, in 2012 and 2015.
“I recognize that it is the practice of this board to have progressive responsibility and progressive results from increased violations,” Moore said. “Mr. Bitton and I had an extensive conversation with respect to that.”
He said that because the server who’d sold the drink to the minor had only been on the job three days, she’d not had any training on how to check identification.
“One of the problems is she didn’t even ask for identification,” Moore said.
Moore said he’d discussed with Bitton changes needed for the future.
“I told him that if this board, in your discretion, allowed him to maintain this premises that he and I were going to sit down and do a business plan with respect to the future of this license,” Moore said. “As you all know, it is always my recommendation that a licensee have everyone who is a server of alcoholic beverages be TAM (Techniques of Alcohol Management) certified.”
BLC members asked Bitton how often he was at the restaurant. He replied that he was always there except when he went to purchase supplies.
“Nobody on site was TAM certified while you were gone,” BLC member Charles Nichols said.
BLC member Marty Pusey asked how many employees he’d had go through the certification system since then. He said none had, adding that most of them were students.
“I understand that it’s a busy time but every other licensee is dealing with that same issue,” Pusey said.
Bitton said that during June, when the violation occurred, the restaurant had just hired most of its servers.
“It goes from zero employees to 20-30 in a heartbeat,” he said. “It’s just always overwhelming.”
William Esham, chairman of the board, reminded Bitton that was his responsibility as proprietor.
“It’s not our problem,” he said. “It’s your problem to take care of that.”
The board voted unanimously to levy the $2,000 fine and one-week suspension, which began Wednesday at 6 p.m.
In addition to Flavors of Italy, several other restaurants had hearings with the board Wednesday as a result of the sale of alcohol to minors. The Purple Moose Saloon, Crabcake Factory USA, Frog Bar, Mother’s Tortilla Shop and Green House Café all received letters of reprimand.
