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This Weekend: Beware the Liquor Police

Posted by Victor Fiorillo on November 16th, 2012

Subsequent to yesterday’s story on Union Trust closing its doors, probably, in part, because they can’t legally serve booze, we’ve learned about quite a few bars and restaurants whose liquor licenses are, like Union Trust’s, listed as “inactive” with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

Philadelphia establishments with licenses that appear as inactive include: Table 31, Farmer’s Cabinet, Noir, Chick’s, Bridgid’s, Kennett, Roosevelt’s, Revolution House, Bishop’s Collar, Chima, Doobie’s, Philadium, Sammy Chon’s KTown BBQ, Las Bugambillias, and Lucy’s Hat Shop.

But, notes PLCB spokesperson Stacy Kriedeman, just because your license appears as inactive in the database, doesn’t mean you cannot serve alcohol, because there are sometimes circumstances in which establishments are granted temporary authority to sell.

According to Kriedeman, Table 31 falls under that provision, and they can legally sell until November 30th. But she says that the Happy Rooster and Chima appear to “have no authority” to sell wine or liquor. And now Michael Klein is reporting that the Farmer’s Cabinet is on that list.

Interestingly, representatives of the Farmer’s Cabinet and Chima both say that they have paperwork giving them the authority to sell. A bartender at the Happy Rooster suggested I call the bar’s owner, who responded “yeah, yeah, yeah” when I asked her if the Rooster was legally allowed to sell. She said she’d call me back to discuss the matter further.

Meanwhile, Kriedeman was unable to immediately provide details on the
remaining “inactives” in Philadelphia.

With all of this information now out and, more importantly, on the PLCB’s radar, we wonder if the friendly liquor police will be making their rounds this weekend.


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    This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2012 at 5:31 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

    • CM

      Fortunately in some cases (Revolution House for example), and unfortunately in others (Lucy’s Hat Shop, Red Zone, Club 27, Mad River) the liquor police a.k.a the LCE isn’t able to shut places down. The city has to do that.

    • JULIAN HUXLEY

      I HAVE IT ON HIGH AUTHORITY THAT THE LCB WAS OUT IN FULL FORCE SECRETLY FILMING AND RECORDING EVERY DRINK SERVED AT VIOLATING INSTITUTIONS LAST NIGHT AND THAT EACH VIOLATION WILL CARRY A $3000 FINE MEANING MANY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PAY THEIR FINES

    • Stephen Olitsky

      As we learned this year, it turns out ALL Philadelphia liquor licenses expire 10/31. Table 31 like many others are renewed digitally on line. Table 31′s renewal was under an e-mail for an old employee that was terminated, and the LCB does not notify liquor license holders via any other method if a license has expired or is about to expire. We were able to update ours the day we were made aware…there simply must be a better method. Our License is in good standing and renewed.

    • Mistake?

      Victor, I have to ask did you make a poor judgement in running this piece?

      I have considered you a friend of good restaurant and bar owners. Someone who could be trusted with a confidential piece of info or an early scoop. Someone on the inside of what it takes to run a place.

      Why would you list honorable places that apparently had an administrative snafu with the LCB in such an article? You are aware how mistake prone the LCB is in handling licenses.

      I’m upset you listed Chick’s, Bridgid’s, Kennett, Revolution House and Bishop’s Collar, places we all know to be reputable operators. A few others I consider bad places and don’t care. And the last few I don’t know anything about them but now wonder about the operators in a negative way. You might have hurt both the good and bad businesses with your glib scare piece.

      Sorry buddy, usually admire your work but I think you should apologize to the good guys in public. I’d think better of you again and be willing to share news if you care about such a thing.

    • Victor Fiorillo

      Thanks for the message, Mistake. As I stated in the post, and according to the PLCB, just because you have an “inactive” listing doesn’t mean that you’re doing anything wrong if you serve liquor. But, also according to the PLCB, some of these places are not supposed to be serving liquor, while some may have temporary authority, as in the case of Table 31. I think you read the post as me stating that all the bars on the list are doing something wrong. That’s definitely not what I said.

    • Mike

      Glad to hear it Victor, Stay one of the good guys !

      Best wishes for a quick resolution to those having headaches with the blundering PLCB.

    • Jacques Strappe

      Hey Victor, why the hatchet job on J Bo? He’s a largely irrelevant dude and he’s certainly got more than his fair share of personal problems. Self defecation is indeed humorous to me, but this just seems like piling on.

    • Kimberly

      J Bo defecated after his depends expired on Oct 31. This means he was not licensed to defecate in his pants. He claims to have had a temporary authorization from Kimberly-Clark but Dockers pants states KC issued a statement warning depends are not dependable after expiration. Calls are in to KC for clarication on this apparent leg smear issue.

    • Jimmy

      Who is J Bo?

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