Compliance Check Suspends Grille Alcohol Sales

Author: Ashley Elpern Editor-in-Chief

An employee of The Grille was fined $120 after the Vermont Department of Liquor Control (DLC) Inspector issued a compliance check at The Grille on Sunday, Oct. 28 after the employee served an underage drinker. The Grille will receive a three-day suspension of its liquor license once the state Liquor Inspector finalizes her report.

Steven Reigle, general manager of McCullough Dining Services, explained the background of the incident. "From time to time, the DLC comes in and tries to have an underage person purchase alcohol or cigarettes. The purpose is to see how the establishment checks identification (ID)," he said.

This differs from a sting operation, in which such items are sold without carding the purchaser. In such a compliance check, the person will show valid ID, but it will clearly state that the purchaser is underage.

Reigle said there are very few forms of ID that The Grille accepts when selling alcohol. Valid driver's licenses and passports are proper forms of ID, but college ID cards are not. All ID must include a photograph, as some Vermont driver's licenses do not have pictures.

In this case, the Liquor Inspector watched as an underage person presented a valid form of ID. The employee at The Grille did check the ID but miscalculated the age of the purchaser and sold the alcohol, according to Reigle. At this point, the Liquor Inspector stepped in, wrote a ticket for the server and checked with the manager on duty to make sure that the server had been trained to serve alcohol, .

Reigle said that all employees at The Grille go through a training process consisting of a lecture on standard procedures and an examination on common situations that liquor servers could face. They also sign a consent form stating to indicate that they understand all rules regarding the sale of alcohol.

The Grille took quick action, immediately suspending sales of alcohol until all employees of both The Juice Bar and The Grille could be retrained even though the three-day suspension of the liquor license had not gone into effect. As beer and wine sales comprise less that one percent of total revenue at The Grille, Reigle said that the suspension of sales has not had much of an effect on operations.

"We believe this was the appropriate action to take," said Reigle. "We are probably one of the more responsible establishments [selling alcohol] and in the past have received commendations for our compliance with the alcohol policy."

Director of Dining Services Pete Napolitano echoed these feelings, stating that Dining Services "wanted to regroup our staff and address and focus on the issue of serving alcohol."

He said that the College usually holds a session of training for employees in the week before Winter Term classes begin, with different themes and programs such as safety and sanitation, CPR training and Training for Intervention Procedures (TIPS), which educates participants about alcohol and serving alcohol and provides them with skills necessary to intervene alcohol abuse situations.

Following this compliance check, Napoliatano said that more TIPS training programs may be offered to Grille employees throughout the year because there is a constant turnover of staff.

"It doesn't matter how much training and time an issue is given," said Napolitano. "Humans all make mistakes. The severity is not the mistake itself but now owning up to the mistake."

He supports Reigle's precautions to remedy the situation and said that by taking the penalty of a three-day suspension instead of a larger fine, The Grille is taking responsibility.

"Because the message is so important, this is not just something that we can throw money at and forget about," he said. "This was never about the money, it is about the message we convey to the DLC that we are taking this seriously."

Napolitano commented on the presence of alcohol at The Grille, saying that when The Grille was built, alcohol sales were included to give students, faculty, staff and administration the opportunity to drink responsibly, but that alcohol was never meant to be the focal point.

Because alcohol sales do not begin until 5 p.m., he said that the volume of sales is quite low and that The Grille does not in any way promote alcohol.

In addition to re-training all staff, Napolitano said that The Grille has requested that the Department of Public Safety secure calendars that tell servers what date a person must be born before to purchase alcohol, so that a more careful check of ID can occur in the future. He continued that Public Safety is the liaison to the DLC and is currently handling the issue.

Sales of alcohol resumed Tuesday night and as of press time, the DLC had not issued a full report to the College.