Leaders Slap Loco's on Liquor

They’ll keep their license for now but the message to Loco’s owners is clear: one more strike and you are out of business.
 
With $4 million in business on the line, Loco’s Grill and Pub owners Michael Conner and Benjamin Everett came to City Council prepared. They brought Attorney Tim Wamsley to defend them. They offered a thick notebook of tough new employee alcohol policies. They even brought examples of artwork designed to alert customers that everyone’s identification is now checked regardless of apparent age. In the end though, it came down to Conner and Everett convincing council that they are serious about keeping alcohol out of the hands of those under 21.
 
“It was pretty heartbreaking and disturbing to know that after all you did and all the procedures you put in place someone could simply fail you.” Conner’s cheeks flushed red as he stood under the glaring lights of City Council Chambers. Despite a smart business suit, his unkempt hair and demeanor made him look younger than his years.
 
Conner told council that after the first underage sales violation in October they rewrote and reinforced the rules on alcohol sales at their Broughton Street restaurant. Despite those efforts, another undercover underage operative was able to buy booze in December while co-owner Benjamin Everett was working as floor manager. They blamed and fired a server after that incident and wrote up even stronger rules to try to keep it from happening again.
 
As part of the new policy or “culture” as Conner repeatedly referred to it, they will no longer allow those under 21 to enter the restaurant at all after 11pm, identification will be checked every time someone orders an alcoholic drink and they are now sending in their own undercover underage operatives to check up on their employees.
 
In the end aldermen agreed to let them keep the license with some minor stipulations. They have 30 days to get all their employees trained by the city in alcohol policy and 120 days of probation during which they will go through increased police scrutiny.
 
Southside leader Tony Thomas made it clear that this would be Loco’s only opportunity to straighten up. “If this license comes up here again in any reasonable amount of time you have an automatic vote against you.” Thomas said over the objections of City Attorney Jimmy Blackburn. Mayor Pro Tem Edna Jackson echoed that warning.
 
One thing council did not address in Thursday’s hearing was Loco’s practice of closing their kitchen and acting like a nightclub on weekend nights, a practice the city found “violates the spirit and intent of the ordinance.” The “ordinance” is a law passed in 2006 to keep those under 21 out of bars and nightclubs. Under that ordinance, in order to let underage customers in an establishment must qualify as a “full service restaurant”.
 
In Thursday’s council hearing, Conner and Everett both mentioned “closing their kitchen” hours before closing the bar. That seems to violate the defining ordinance “A full-service restaurant as herein defined will have in operation at all times while open a fully-equipped commercial kitchen…”  
 
Loco’s has stopped hosting live music even though that is not a violation of the law but they continue to advertise mainly alcohol and entertainment on their website. Under Savannah law, establishments that “…emphasize alcoholic beverages in their advertising…” and “entertainment as a focus of their business advertising and activity” are not classified as “full service restaurants”.
 
While they avoided any mention of those violations, council members called what Loco’s is doing a “hybrid” and say at a later date they will be drafting new rules to cover restaurants that sometimes act like nightclubs.