Bartenders cited for underage sales

It’s a problem in many college towns: Underage drinking. State Alcohol Law Enforcement cited three Downtown Wilmington bartenders over the weekend for allegedly serving alcohol to customers under the age of 21. So who’s ultimately to blame in a situation like this?

There are three key players in keeping under-aged customers from drinking: The bouncer, the bartender and the bar.

ALE cited Michelle West at Pravda for serving underage customers, as well as Joseph Mayer at The Cellar and Derek Sugrue, who works at Firebelly Lounge. The three received the citations while ALE was conducting a routine compliance check.

According to ALE it is the responsibility of the person who hands or sells a drink to a customer to check or double-check to make sure a customer is 21 or older. ALE uses people to act as under-age drinkers to test bartenders and bars for serving alcohol to minors. Some bar employees say it’s everyone’s job to prevent underage drinking.

“If that ticket was my fault, I’d feel pretty guilty about it, but it would actually be the bartender that would get it and the bar,” former bouncer Matt Bustamante said. “I’d probably get fired as a bouncer. So either way it falls on all of us.”

North Carolina’s ABC Commission will determine if any of the bars will get a citation and the amount of the fine for each bartender.

We were only able to get a hold of the owner of one of the three bars cited. Dan Boyle of Firebelly Lounge says he fully supports the ALE and its efforts to control underage drinking. He’s already set up a training session for next week with ALE in an effort to make sure his employees are fully-trained to read IDs and make sure this never happens again.