Liquor Control Board - July 17, 2019 Minutes
LIQUOR CONTROL BOARD
July 17, 2019 1:30 P.M.
Present: Commissioner Piepkorn, Commissioner Gehrig, Police Chief Todd, City Auditor Sprague, Grant Larson, Environmental Health
Absent: None
Others Present: Assistant City Attorney Nancy Morris; Rick Carik, Rick’s; Dustin Mitzel, Happy Harry’s, Duane Litton, Duffy’s; Joe Burgum; Lisa Meyer, Wurst; Francis & Mballu Brown & Corey Schultz, International African Restaurant & Nightclub; Dean Bachmeier, Buffalo Wild Wings; Carol Schlossman, Josi Danz, Paul Gleye Downtown Neighborhood Association, Larry Anenson, Fargo Cass Public Health, Other members of the media, concerned citizens and other members of the industry.
Meeting was called to order at 1:30 P.M.
1. Commissioner Piepkorn called the meeting to order and asked if there were any additions or corrections to the minutes of June 19, 2019. There were no additions or corrections to the minutes of June 19, 2019. Moved by Gehrig, seconded by Larson to approve the minutes of the June 19, 2019 meeting of the Liquor Control Board all voted in favor, motion passed unanimously.
2. A. The first application to consider today is the issuance of a Class “FA” alcoholic beverage license to Crave Hospitality Fargo, LLC d/b/a Crave located at 3902 13th Avenue South (West Acres) There were no issues or concerns discovered in the background check.
Moved by Gehrig, seconded by Larson to approve the issuance of a Class “FA” alcoholic beverage license to Crave Hospitality Fargo LLC d/b/a Crave located at 3902 13th Avenue South (West Acres) Motion approved unanimously.
B. The second application to be considered today is for the transfer of a Class A alcoholic beverage license from Firebox, LLC d/b/a Firebox to International African Restaurant & Nightclub, LLC d/b/a International African Restaurant & Nightclub to be located at 4554 7th Avenue South. Sprague stated prior to the public hearing the applicant requested withdrawing Frances Brown from the business and replacing him with his wife Mballu Brown; the background check was completed on the new applicant.
Chief Todd explained while there are no criminal history concerns there were some issues with the credit history. Mballu Brown has poor credit history with 2 personal loans with unpaid balances in excess of $15,000 and 3 credit accounts with unpaid balances. Because of the poor credit history, Chief Todd said he could not recommend approval based on our guidelines.
Stephan Baird an attorney representing the applicants said the $15,000 debt was a result of what in effect was identity theft. Mballu’s ex-husband incurred this debt just prior to their divorce. As to the other debts, she has paid those in collections and will work to pay the remainder.
Chief Todd said this situation reminds him of another time when the City was lenient with granting a license, Romo ended up skipping town and leaving a trail of debt and unpaid bills behind.
Moved by Todd, seconded by Larson to DENY the transfer of a Class A alcoholic beverage license from Firebox, LLC d/b/a Firebox to International African Restaurant & Nightclub, LLC d/b/a International African Restaurant & Nightclub to be located at 4554 7th Avenue South. Voting Yea, Gehrig, Larson Todd & Sprague; voting Ney Piepkorn.
3. Sprague said Commissioner Gehrig had discussed server training with the full commission who referred the server training issue back to the Liquor Control Board. Commissioner Gehrig said it was his goal to improve the server training performance and eliminate some of the workload for the Police Department. He would like to see businesses develop their own server-training program and have Police approve the plan, that way PD wouldn’t be tying up man-hours doing server training.
Carol Schlossman from the Downtown Neighborhood Association indicated Grand Forks has an option of on-line training that servers complete.
Chief Todd felt his staff can meet the needs of providing classroom server training, he feels it is important for servers to have the in person interaction with PD. Piepkorn agreed in-person contact is good; he would like to hear from the industry what they are feeling.
Dustin Mitzel, Happy Harry’s, told the Board his company is not interested in doing their own training, that added responsibility would be a hindrance to their companies mission. He indicated he would like to see the ability to renew on-line for all renewals. He stated the first server training class should be in class in person training after that they could have the option of on-line training. He said the in class training is beneficial to start developing the relationship with the officers, of course it can depend on the officer. He commented in their Grand Forks store the process of server training is simpler, it is all on-line. Chief Todd said he is fine with this suggestion, the training provides a baseline, a lot of learning comes after the in-class training.
Commissioner Gehrig said he would like to hear from the industry, server training alone would not fix all the problems.
Larry Anenson, Fargo Cass Public Health, said our current program is the first class is in person, then renewals on-line. FCPH has provided server training since 1999, last year they trained 2200 servers. They hold 4 or 5 classes on a monthly basis, generally in May and June that increases to 8 or 9 classes. They have not had a problem getting officers to teach the classes. He feels the first class being in person is extremely important. They have the participants evaluate the class and always receive high marks. The on-line option for renewals was added about 4 years ago. A real problem is the no-shows, up to 20% of those that sign up for class do not come.
In addition, FCPH works with the PD to do compliance checks. They held checks in January and May with 80 percent of the businesses checked passing. Compliance checks are random and conducted up to 4 times a year; those businesses with a history of failures are checked more frequently.
Commissioner Gehrig said an 80% training rate is not acceptable, the private sector can do better than the government at conducting the training, we need to be open minded about how we train. Anenson said it is all about getting people in the class.
Moved by Gehrig, seconded by Sprague to allow businesses to do their own training. Sprague seconded for discussion, he commented the current ordinance already allows businesses to do their own training with a program approved by the Chief. Sprague said we had one business years ago, that got their corporate training approved, this was under a different Chief of Police and the business is no long operating in Fargo. Commissioner Gehrig withdrew his motion and Sprague withdrew the second.
Dustin Mitzel said it is a privilege to sell alcohol, there has to be checks and balances, he feels it would send a bad message to the industry to tell them they can now self-police. He could see cases where companies just say they are trained but don’t do the work to get trained. Gehrig said they would risk losing their license, people assume the worst.
Carol Schlossman, Downtown Neighborhood Association, said the goal is to get people trained. The ordinance provides 3 months to comply. It is necessary to establish a baseline of training.
Commissioner Piepkorn said we had problems getting everyone to the mandatory meeting, now we have penalties for non-compliance and don’t have issues. We need to do the same for server training, increase the penalties for non-compliance.
4. Chief Todd said he reviewed the penalty matrix Attorney Morris had assembled compared to the sub-committee. Chief Todd felt the biggest difference was the number of infractions that are allowed under our current ordinance versus the proposed. To help reconcile the versions, he is proposing eliminating two failures from most of the offenses. The biggest change he is proposing is in the failure to allow a police officer to inspect the property, there he is proposing harsher penalties and decreasing the number of failures a licensee can have.
Commissioner Gehrig asked if the reset would be a rolling 18 months, Chief indicated he preferred a rolling 12 months. Commissioner Gehrig asked if an offense is egregious enough can the City pull the license, Attorney Morris said as long as the proper steps are followed. Sprague said we are not looking for action just wanted everyone to have time to review the proposal.
5. Other – Sprague mentioned with Sunday opening coming up soon, there have been questions regarding when licensees are allowed to sell alcohol on Sunday. Sprague said the legislature did not change the rules relating to Sunday alcohol sales. On-sale still starts at 11 a.m. and off-sale can begin at noon.
There being no further business to come before the Liquor Control Board, the meeting was adjourned at 2:19 p.m. The next regular meeting will be held Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 1:30 p.m. in the City Commission Room.