Restaurants to answer for selling alcohol to a minor

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September 26, 2012

Restaurants to answer for selling alcohol to a minor

By Ethan Forman Staff Writer The Salem News Wed Sep 26, 2012, 04:30 AM EDT

DANVERS — The Olive Garden on Route 114 and the Onion Town Grill on Water Street were both caught up in a round of police liquor compliance checks held this past summer, while a jewelry and precious metals dealer at the mall has problems with its record keeping, police Chief Neil Ouellette told selectmen recently.

All three establishments are scheduled to go before selectmen for hearings on Oct. 16. The Olive Garden at 153 Andover St. opened for business in the spring of 2011, and the Onion Town Grill opened in 2007.

“They served a beer each to an underage operative without asking for an ID,” Ouellette said in an interview about the eating establishments.

On July 27, police checked all alcohol-license establishments in town using an underage operative. The Olive Garden and Onion Town Grill were the only two caught selling beer to the minor in the check. A hearing on the establishments’ licenses, which would lay out the facts of the cases, will be conducted next month, Ouellette said. At that time, representatives of the restaurant will be able to state their case.

Ouellette asked the board to look into who was the manager of record for the Olive Garden, and Town Clerk Joseph Collins said his office received a request for a change of manager at the restaurant.

In other business on Sept. 18, Ouellette outlined potential violations of town bylaws regarding the sale of secondhand merchandise at Gold Buyers of America. Police Detective Robert Sullivan uncovered the violations when he went to several establishments looking for specific pieces of jewelry allegedly stolen from a house break in Peabody, in conjunction with an investigation by the Peabody Police Department.

On Sept. 10, Sullivan went to the Liberty Tree Mall shop, met with a manager and checked the records, and found the one he was looking for was deficient without a description of the property, a picture or a copy of an ID of the seller, Ouellette said.

Sullivan checked a binder covering a 30-day period and found several instances of deficient records in unrelated transactions. In some, a Costco membership card or expired licenses were used. Sullivan also found discrepancies in dates of transactions and fuzzy photos taken of items. Some of the transactions with deficient records were not reported to police using an electronic spreadsheet, Ouellette said.

The record keeping of Danvers Coin and Estate Buyers in Danvers Square, which had come under scrutiny by police in the past for its records, and Blue River Diamonds in the Liberty Tree Mall helped in the recovery of several stolen pieces, Ouellette said.

“In this instance, they did what was expected of them,” Ouellette said during a meeting broadcast on cable TV.

Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673, by email at eforman@salemnews.com or on Twitter at @DanverSalemNews.