A lessons learned from my successful effort to close a problem bar in our neighborhood.

Baltimore City has over 1500 liquor licenses, including restaurants, bars, and liquor stores. Most of them are good neighbors that are mindful of the amount of noise they make, don’t over serve patrons, deal with loitering, and clean up around their establishment. However, a bad bar can have an out sized effect on an area, and can range from a nuisance to a magnet for crime.

Upper Fells Point successfully closed down Honey’s Lounge in during the last renewal cycle, because they had served to minors, but first had to endure 14 years of noise, violence, trash, and public drinking, and many violated agreements.

The Liquor Board has started being more friendly to community complaints since 2016 when the power to appoint commissioners switched from the governor’s office to the Mayor, but the process can still be a years long process of setting up agreements, collecting violations, and attending liquor board hearings.

This is our lessons learned from the process.

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

Approach the establishment about the issues and set up an MOU, which is an agreement between the neighborhood and the establishment that outlines what exactly is expected from the establishment. If both sides agree to an MOU, it can be attached to the establishment's liquor license which would turn MOU violations into license violations.

An establishment is not obligated to enter into an MOU, which can make it hard to get a reluctant establishment to come to the table. If an establishment is refusing to setup an MOU, it can be useful to show up to any violation hearings they have and ask for the board to require an MOU. In the case of Honey’s Lounge, after they had accrued a few violations, the liquor board directed them to sit down with the community when we testified against them when they appeared before the board for serving a minor. They still refused, which ended up being a large reason they were shut down.

If an agreement is reached, submit the signed MOU to the liquor board so it can be attached to the liquor license, and so violations of the MOU become violations of the license. This can be a very powerful tool during license renewals in April.

Calling 311

There was a recent renewal hearing where a bar had a murder, drug activity, and loitering, featuring testimony from the Major and Councilperson of the district, with compelling testimony of a bar that has no business operating.

The Baltimore 311 app where liquor establishment complaints can be lodged

However, the license was renewed because the liquor board had not heard of any of the issues before the protest hearing. The police had not forwarded the records to the board over the previous year, and there had not been any 311 complaints forwarded to the liquor board.

So if there are issues, call 311 or submit them in the 311 app, and make sure to mark them as liquor boar complaints. Do this even if you call the police.

You can also directly contact the liquor board inspector directly:

If you would like to report what you believe to be a liquor board violation, please call 311 to report the matter or call our offices at 410–396–4377 during normal business hours and speak to Chief Inspector Mark Fosler. Also, note that a Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD) tip line and direct email address has been established for complaints regarding illegal bar activity. You can contact the Vice Unit of the BCPD directly via email at vicetips@baltimorepolice.org or you can call at 443–984–7080.

Submitting complaints like this results in an official paper trail on the establishment, which is critical.

Collecting Evidence

Part of the battle is compelling images. Part is proving that the issue is connected to the bar.

Start collecting evidence on the establishment, including photos, videos, and eye witness accounts with dates and times. Collecting evidence over a long period of time shows a pattern of behavior, and the hard evidence shows specific complaints. Descriptions can be vivid, but a picture shows them specifically what is happening.

Attend Violation Hearings

If you have been reporting the bar to the Vice Unit, and calling 311, a bad bar is likely to eventually get a violation for breaking the Rules and Regulations of the Liquor Board. A bar will not be shut down for generating trash, or allowing loitering, but they might find themselves on the wrong side of a violation for rule 4.20(c): “A Tavern must be open and operating at all times”, or rule 4.01(a): “Sales to minors”. Or they might not buy alcohol from a licensed distributor, and violate rule 4.08(a).

Many of these violation hearings can end up with the board giving the establishment a slap on the wrist in the form of a couple hundred dollar fine. However, the community can testify during the sentencing and request an MOU. Testifying during a sentencing also lets the board know about problems, and builds a record of issues so the licensee cannot claim ignorance.

Violation details, and hearing schedules are posted on the Liquor Board website.

Prepare for the renewal hearing

To get a bad bar shut down, their license needs to be revoked during the renewal process in April. In Baltimore City, every liquor license expires yearly on April 30, and a protest only requires 10 signatures from ‘proximate’ neighbors.

While there are many stumbling blocks to a successful protest, including the language on the protest petition. It is best to retain an attorney, such as Becky Witt from the Community Law Center, who works for non-profits and community associations for a very reasonable flat fee.

They will not build your case for you, but they will assist you in some of the major stumbling blocks as you go through the process. She gave us a template for the petition, told us about a city holiday that would have made our protest packet late, and answered our questions as we formed our case. Make sure to contact the CLC before the end of January to request their services. The protest signatures are due by March 31.

Then, start collecting signatures, and letters of protest. You only need ten signatures, but its good to get as many signatures as possible as it shows the board the level of support the protest has. In our case, we got 118 signatures in the 3x3 blocks directly around the bar, and 70 from the adjacent blocks.

The letters of protest should be as specific as possible, with specific complaints and specific dates and times, if possible. Letters are not as valuable as testimony, as the people cannot be cross examined, but it can be used to back up the testimony of those that are present.

Turn in the signatures to the liquor board office by March 31 (or the last business day in March, minding holidays like Good Friday) and then look on the board’s website the next week to find out when the hearing was scheduled.

You can also get an idea of how the hearing will go by watching previous liquor board hearings from April of each year, which are posted on Baltimore’s CharmTV.

The Hearing

Bring all of the collected evidence, including photos, videos, eye witness accounts, and as many people to the hearing as you can. The first thing that should be brought up in testimony is the specific complaint against the establishment, and why is it being protested. The complaint should be tied to violations of the liquor board rules.

It is best to focus on the last license year, which goes from May 1 to April 30. Technically, the hearing is only considering actions from the last year, but once they have established a valid complaint over the previous year, the liquor board will generally take a look at the establishment’s record to get an idea of patterns of conduct, efforts made by the licensee, and any reasonable expectation of change.

The more specific instances that can be cited, the better. One common question posed by defense lawyers is ‘how do you know these people were going to this bar?’ Be prepared to answer that question with pictures, testimony, and potentially asking the patrons in question, if possible.

Standard Defense Arguments

After watching a lot of hearings, there seem to be a handful of standard arguments that defense attorneys use to derail a protest.

The signatures are invalid because they do not live close enough to the establishment. There is no hard and fast rule about the distance, but showing that its proximate is important.

The signers, letters of support or protesters are also liquor license holders. The Drinkery had a successful protest overturned in 2016 because one of the individuals was a liquor license holder, and did not disclose that. That protest was overturned in the circuit court.

The petitions are invalid. Its very important to work with a lawyer to make sure these are valid.

The issues around the bar are not caused by the bar. Proving the issues around the bar requires some detective work, and the pictures, eye witness accounts (especially first hand accounts), 311 calls, and police reports. One bit of evidence that really helped was showing pictures of a Sunday when surrounding bars were closed, and the problems persisted.

The area has too many bars. You are not fighting the number of bars, you are fighting this specific establishment for these specific infractions. Never forget that.

The licensee was not aware of the issues. The board is sympathetic to a licensee that seems blindsided by the allegations, especially if the board is also blindsided, as they were with the Waverly Tavern. Either setting up an MOU, or showing a good faith effort to setup an MOU is critical.

The Appeal

The reason the Liquor Board gave for keeping the Waverly Tavern open, in the face of an insurmountable amount of evidence, was that the closure would be overturned on appeal. All decisions of the liquor board can be appealed to the Maryland Circuit Court if there are any issues with the way the case was handled.

Honey’s Lounge asked the liquor board to reconsider their decision twice, and then appealed the case to Circuit Court. They alleged that they raised the issue of racial bias during the hearing, and that it was not adequately addressed by the Liquor Board. They were unsuccessful, but any small procedural issue can be appealed in an attempt to overturn the finding. It may seem wrong when a bar like Waverly Tavern is allowed to stay open, but the appeals process is rigorous.

Conclusion

Closing down a bad bar takes a lot of time, effort, and patience. The best option is to get the establishment to agree to compliance, but there are tools available to get non-complainant and uncooperative bars shut down. If you are going that route, be ready to put in lots of work, and for it to take a while as they give the licensee opportunities to fix their operation.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @cylussec, or reach out to the Community Law Center if you are you a non profit that needs some assistance.