Fifth Street Bar & Woodfire Grill has been handed a fine by the British Columbia Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch (BCLCRB) after an employee was caught serving a minor.
In June of last year, liquor inspectors were conducting secret inspections at a number of Victoria-based bars and restaurants. The inspectors used two 16-year-old minors on this occasion, and sent them into the establishments as undercover agents.
One inspector arrived at Fifth Street at around 4:45 p.m. on the day of the inspection. The minor agents arrived shortly thereafter.
According to the inspector, one of the minor agents ordered water and the other ordered a Budweiser beer.
“The server took the order without requesting or verifying the ID of the minor agent who ordered the beer,” reads the BCLCRB report.
“The server then brought a bottle of beer with a bold red label and placed it in front of [the minor].”
Once the beer was dropped at the minors’ table, the inspector walked over and confirmed it was an alcoholic beverage that the server brought over.
The minor agents were then told to leave the establishment and the inspector identified himself as an inspector to a server and asked to speak with a manager.
The general manager of Fifth Street spoke with the inspector and was told of the incident and paid for the Budweiser the minor ordered before leaving the establishment.
According to the BCLCRB, the general manager of Fifth Street had around 30 years of experience in the food service industry.
She was reportedly calm and cooperative throughout the incident and did not dispute the inspector’s recollection of events.
“While she found it hard to believe that a staff person failed to ask for ID, she acted professionally in her dealings with the inspector,” reads the report.
She noted that the bar’s current policy is for staff to ask for identification from any patron who appears to be under 25-years-old.
Fifth Street reportedly has a zero-tolerance policy for staff failing to ID patrons, with failure may result in dismissal.
Following the incident, the employee who was involved in the service to the minor agent was first suspended by the general manager, and was terminated a few days later.
Ultimately, Fifth Street acknowledged that one of its staff had unknowingly sold alcohol to a minor, but claimed a defence of “due diligence” in an effort to avoid repercussions.
The grounds they had for this defence were in their training policies and staff communication systems which aim to avoid incidents such as this.
The BCLCRB found that Fifth Street did not give sufficient evidence and was penalized for the incident in the end.
Fifth Street was ordered to pay a monetary penalty of $7,000 to the BCLCRB on or before March 24th.
