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October 04, 2007
Heard a rumor a few days ago that a local club got into trouble with the LC over a story we'd recently run. I found this particularly distasteful—not so much that a club would get into trouble (that happens often enough) but that the county Liquor Control department was using Maui Time Weekly (of all papers) as a tip sheet.
The place was Tip Ups Tavern and Grill, and the story was our Sept. 13 feature "Booty Money,"¯ in which writer Heidi King explained how she made more money at a dance contest held there than she did during a seven-hour server shift at a local resort.
"We talked about it the story,"¯ LC Director Franklyn Silva told me. "I looked at it."¯
But Silva denied Tip Ups was getting into any trouble. "No, no trouble,"¯ he said. "Nobody's in trouble. No violation—at least, nothing I've signed."¯
Silva said he and his department were "very interested"¯ in the part of the story where King wrote about the other contestants—particularly, the first girl.
"The first girl to take the floor was wasted,"¯ King wrote. "Well, I hope she was wasted because she looked like a whore."¯
This is just dramatic description. Taken by itself, the first sentence would seem to be what LC investigators are always looking for: a straight-up identification of over-service, which can bring a bar owner anything from a $2,000-fine to a suspended liquor license.
But then there's the little matter of that second sentence—the one that casts doubt on the initial observation by adding a second, somewhat scathing observation that casts doubt on the idea that the first girl in the contest was "wasted."¯
When pressed, Silva continued to deny that his department had written up Tip Ups, but then dropped the tiny caveat "so far."¯ Laughing, he added that, "we do pay attention to your paper."¯
Nothing may yet have happened to Tip Ups, but it's all but certain LC investigators will be spending a lot more time watching the place. And for that, I apologize.
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