The Encinitas Sherriff’s Department announced Friday that Bar Leucadian will have its liquor license suspended after undercover investigators bought cocaine at the bar multiple times.
During the four-month-long investigation, cocaine was purchased at Bar Leucadian four times, and both employees and patrons were involved in the sales, according to a news release from the Sherriff’s Department.
The investigation was launched after someone filed a complaint at the Encinitas Sheriff's Station, and the undercover work was funded by the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Grant Assistance Program.
As a penalty, Bar Leucadian will have its liquor license suspended for 45 days, which means during that period the bar cannot sell any alcohol. The news release also states that the owner of the bar has agreed to other conditions that will restrict live entertainment and hours of operation.
The notice of suspension will be posted at Bar Leucadian on Monday at 11 a.m.
No wonder we have issues here. I saw no mention of arrests yet if it was a "sting" they obviously saw the the transactions and therefore have the person/s identifiied. They need to permanently lose the lic. And be jailed period. Let someone who wants to have a legitimate business have the space and bring Encinitas up a notch.
No really, It's cool, we really need another plastic suburb safe for spoiled kids, fake tits and my Beemer in SoCal. Plus, I should still be able to score coke at the weekly botox party the divorcee across the street hosts. So, no big loss I guess. We can all just stay Locked up in our houses listening to the oriely factor, get schloked alone, and scream our collective outrage along with fox news. Just saying, there's a difference between a neighborhood bar with bad employees and a "community problem"- turning into a bunch of del mar wankers around here.
Would you put your business and assets in the hands of a minimum wage bartender ? That's what our laws require, it should be changed. When the cops found out about the sales, they should investigate and contact the owner to put an end to it and arrest the employees involved, not enough money for the government hacks for that ...
I admire your defense of your client, but a good bar owner, or the owner of a good neighborhood bar would've known this was going on. I've been a bartender at neighborhood bars in several different cities around the country. In every case, the regulars and trusted customers would have picked up on the problem and warned the owners. If a bar owner doesn't have that level of control, or that type of relationship with theircustomers, you're not running a neighborhood bar, they're merely running a liquor store.
Apparently someone tipped off law enforcement, and I presume that the owner was at one time a suspect himself/herself. It's entirely plausible that the owner was simply disconnected from the business, and unwittingly allowed things to go on (for many months) purely out of neglect. To me that qualifies this as a badly run neighborhood bar that should perhaps be closed or sold to someone who can pay closer attention. Whether or not this represents some Establishment vendetta against the owner and bar is now utterly irrelevant. We're not talking about noise or parking violations, we're talking about narcotics sales. It's not much of a leap to imagine physical violence would follow close on the heels of this situation had it been allowed to persist. It's a shame to see a local business hurt, but these injuries seem pretty much self-inflicted to me.