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No Good Deed...

by By Anthony Pignataro

April 12, 2007

The County of Maui’s liquor rules state very clearly that it’s not

enough if a licensee’s staff simply takes note that one of their

customers may be drunk. Nor is it enough if the licensee’s staff

engages in what the industry calls “slow service,” even to the point of

pretending not to hear the customer’s request for another drink. In

fact, it’s not even enough if the licensee cuts off a potential drunk:

under Maui’s liquor rules, all licensees must physically remove from

the premises any customer they consider to be intoxicated. To do less

than that is to invite serious fines and penalties.

Mulligan’s at the Wharf found this out during the Apr. 5, 2007

Liquor Control Adjudication Board hearing. On June 14, 2006, the Maui

Police Department arrested a woman in Ka`anapali for driving under the

influence. An LC investigator subsequently asked where she’d been

drinking, and she said Mulligan’s (she had attended a fundraiser for a

young resident suffering from cancer).

At the Apr. 5 hearing Mulligan’s owner Kevin O’Kennedy argued over

how many drinks the woman actually consumed on the night in

question—his bartender said they served her two before “ignoring” her

request for a third; her husband said she’d had “three or four”—but he

conceded the point that his staff should have thrown her out when they

realized she was intoxicated.

“I’ve not been before this board before,” he told the nine members.

“She was coherent [though] she had a wobble in her wiggle… [But] the

letter of the law states that we recognized she was intoxicated and

that she was not allowed to stay.”

And that’s why Mulligan’s was in the dock. O’Kennedy’s staff tagged

a customer as intoxicated and even stopped serving her, but because

they didn’t kick her out the hammer was going to fall on them.

After nearly half an hour of deliberation, the board returned with

exactly the punishment asked for by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Andrew

Martin: $4,000 in fines, with half that amount suspended if Mulligan’s

can avoid a similar violation for a year.