Restaurant, Cafe Owners Learn Legal Intricacies of Drinking Regulations

More than a dozen restaurant and business owners learned about the intricacies of the state’s liquor control laws and their obligations to ensure those drinking in their establishments are of legal age.

The seminar was organized by the Greenwich Police Department Special Victims Section that investigates complaints of underage drinking and held at police headquarters.

The presentation included Stanley Burk, supervising agent of the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection’s Liquor Control division, who explained differences between restaurant and café licenses. Restaurants must serve full meals while cafes are required to make food available. Restaurants can remain open after the 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. cutoff time for serving alcohol. However, cafes must close.

Turk spent time presenting examples of various fake IDs confiscated from underage drinkers. He told the businessmen that Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles  now has a code which indicates the number of times a license as been issued after being reported "lost." Burk said, "I confiscated a license from a woman. I asked if she ever lost her license and had it replaced. She said 'no,' but I could tell from looking at her license, she had 10 duplicates issued."

Some attendees questioned Burk on the legalities of serving alcohol to underage children accompanied by their parents.

“With the number of Europeans in town, it always has been an issue,” said Danny Chan, the owner of Asiana restaurant on East Putnam Avenue. “It’s custom in Europe for children to drink wine with a meal.”

Chan said his staff does request IDs of young-looking diners. “But it’s not a problem for us. This is not a college town. We are a restaurant with a bar rather than a bar/restaurant,” said Chan who opened Asiana eight years ago.

Burk said that patrons younger than the legal drinking age of 21, can imbibe if accompanied by a parent or spouse who orders the beverage and physically gives it to them. Turk advised the business owners to serve the older adults and leave the responsibility of actually handing over the drink to those adults.

Sgt. Mark Zuccerella of the Special Victims Section said parents who give their minor children alcohol could face risk of injury to a minor charges.

Burk said his department conducted 492 compliance checks around the state last year; 124 establishments failed by selling alcohol to underaged buyers. The last time the Liquor Control division conducted compliance checks in Greenwich was about three years ago, Burk and Greenwich Police said.

Other rules and regulations both patrons and business owners may want to know:

• Restaurant and café staff must complete state forms whenever ID is requested from a patron, and staff must make copies of the ID which should be kept for two years.
• Connecticut law now allows diners to take home unfinished bottles of wine, as long as it is re-corked by the restaurant.
• It is not legal to serve a bottle of wine to a lone diner – bottles must be served to a minimum of two diners.
• It also is illegal to serve a pitcher of beer to a lone patron.
• While gambling is not permitted in café or restaurants, a friendly card game among acquaintances is allowed inside the establishments.
•  It is not legal for a restaurant or café to transfer liquor from one container to another, or substitute lesser grade liquor into top shelf-line containers.
• Establishments offering 2-for-1 drink deals, can only serve one drink per customer at a time.

(*Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Stanley Burk's last name.)