Ottawa Foodies

The recent review for Maxwell's notes that their liquor license will be suspended for 2 weeks. In January, the Royal Oak on Bank (across from Barrymore's) had their license suspended. Oliver's at Carleton had a 40 day suspension in the fall. I'd noticed a trend, and this article by Kelly Egan in yesterday's Citizen confirmed it... it's worth a quick read.

www.canada.com

My favorite line in the article is :

"The purpose of the bar is to serve booze. Booze impairs people. Heaven forbid that we would find a drunk in a bar, or someone who has some impairment."

HeHeHeHeHeHeHeHe

Between a rock and a hard place.... not only is it against the law to serve 'drunk' people, but the 'drunk' people can not leave the establishment or they can be charged with being intoxicated in a public place.

I just LOVE our liquor laws !!!

Ok, I have no issue with the liquor laws per se (although I will agree they can be a party pooper at times... especially on occasions like Winterlude, Sens Mile, Canada Day, etc). My problem is with their application. From what I've read in The Citizen over the last couple of weeks, the Liquour Inspectors don't have to give much of an explanation to the establishment. "Just sorry, here you go a suspension of however long they feel" (my words). IMO, there should be some sort of guidelines as to how the rules are applied (this infraction equals this penalty), I mean the police can't arrest people with out due cause, and every guy is entitled to his day in court, seems to me that when it comes to the application of the liquor laws it is BIG BROTHER vs the little guy. And whats up with the suspension being served when the Inspection group decides? What is the point in an establishment serving a suspension now, when the infraction occurred last year at this time during the Sens Playoffs (as per the Maxwell's post that inspired this thread).

Hopefully The Citizen folks (and others, like us in this forum) will make some noise in support of our local watering holes, because as it stands now, no one really can hear their valid complaints!

Captain Caper and Food & Think I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. When I was at Maxwells last night the waitress told us the OLG suspended their licence because one night during the playoffs last year they were four people over capacity and on another night one person left the bar inebriated (drunk in a bar - imagine!). Not only did they refuse to specify the night but they waited a whole year to take action. With all the hoopla during the playoffs last year one would think they should have sent inspectors around right away and tell the manager right away "you are overcapacity - deal with it or your licence will be suspended" or whatever. Another thing that upset me abit was that, although I was at Maxwells for my bday, for the next two weeks they are donating 25% of their proceeds to Breast Cancer Action which happens to coincide with their liquor licence suspension. My friend and I were the only ones in the bar last night so I'm not sure how much money they will raise but even though we would have enjoyed a libation with dinner we decided to support the cause and give them our business. I guess we used our wallets to support their business. Every single person that came into the restaurant left so they are loosing a ton of business right now.

That really sucks for Maxwell's. I hope they survive the hit.

There was another article in the fall about Oliver's suspension in which they interviewed the owner of the Lieutenant's Pump saying that the new enforcement habits are making a lot of establishment owners think twice about operating. I can see why with the arbitrary way inspections seem to be done.

Part of me thought of the hilarity of the liquor license for the newly-expanded Vietnam Palace on my last visit in early March. It was all one big room, yet they could only serve alcohol to people seated in one half of the room because their expanded license hadn't been issued yet.