By Beth David, Editor
After some legal talk and some wrangling over details, the Fairhaven Selectboard suspended the license of Rasputin’s Tavern for a total of eight days to be taken in August, and eight days to be held in abeyance during a probationary period to September.
At its meeting on Monday, 7/22, the board re-opened the hearing from June. The earlier agreement resulted in the bar taking its suspension in one hour increments, closing at 1 a.m. instead of 2 a.m. until September, and adding an extra security person three days a week, and some additional security measures. The business had been sanctioned for under-age drinking and Board of Health violations including allowing customers to do “body shots” off wait staff during “bikini Fridays,” when wait staff wears bikinis while serving customers. Bikini-clad wait staff also danced on tables and the bar.
On Monday, the board found on the facts that the bar had violations in seven areas, adding up to a minimum of 16 days suspended.
Owner Matthew Cebula attended the meeting on Monday, the first one he attended, although the issue had been before the board three times, and his wife Ellen had attended. Mr. Cebula said he had rejected the agreement made by his previous attorney, hired a new attorney, and said he would appeal the findings of the board to the ABCC, the state’s licensing board, unless the Selectboard changed its previous order.
Attorney John P. Connell told the board that the owners disputed at least two of the charges: That they had served an under-aged patron, and that illegal drugs were consumed on the premises.
Mr. Cebula and Selectboard member Daniel Freitas disagreed on the severity of the situation, with Mr. Cebula outright denying that he was present during some of the violations cited in the police reports, and Mr. Freitas saying he trusted the Fairhaven police detectives.
Mr. Cebula said that he personally never agreed to the former arrangement and that the extra security was costing $1,000 a week, an expense he could not sustain. He said business was down, due in some part to the bad publicity, and so the extra security was not needed.
Mr. Connell also questioned some of the previous findings, saying some of those events were not in the police reports.
Mr. Freitas took to reading directly from the reports on more than one occasion to prove Mr. Connell wrong.
“It’s in the reports,” said Mr. Freitas. “This is a report, with names. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t even know why we’re back here. That’s a whole ’nother story.”
He said all the violations were “clearly stated in the report.”
“I’ll read the whole thing if you want,” he added.
The owners asked that the board drop the charges of serving an under-age patron and drugs being consumed on the premises.
Mr. Crotty told the board that those two violations were the weakest to prove.
After much wrangling, and legal maneuvering about details and wording, the board recessed the hearing so Mr. Connell could confer with his clients and Mr. Crotty.
In the end, the town and the bar agreed that Rasputin’s would waive its right to appeal in exchange for the town dropping the under-age serving and the drugs consumed on premises volations. The bar will take eight days of the suspension during August, with eight days in abeyance.
After the agreement is signed, six days will be eliminated from the suspension, four days for under-age serving, and two days for drugs on premises, so the final tally will be eight days as an active suspension, and two in abeyance.
Mr. Crotty was careful to caution the board on how to word the motion so the bar would not be able to have the two charges dropped and also appeal. He said they should not drop the two violations until the agreement is signed.
Mr. Freitas told Mr. Cebula he did not want to hurt the employees, so he would agree to let the bar pick their slowest days to close.
“You have a problem,” said Mr. Freitas, and urged Mr. Cebula to make sure that his staff calls police when there is a problem.
Mr. Freitas stressed that he was being “lenient” because of the employees, and he did not want to put the town through a legal appeal process.
“We don’t want to hear about any other problems,” said Mr. Freitas. “No appeal, no nothing.”
The next step is for town counsel to write up the agreement and get it signed by both sides. Then, at the next Selectboard meeting, the board will rescind the two violations.
The seven violations with minimum suspensions as listed in the bylaws are four days for serving a minor, and two days for each of the following: over-serving/serving an intoxicated person; illegal drugs being consumed on the premises; disturbing the peace/noise, fights, public urination; dispensing product in an unsanitary manner/body shots; unsanitary conditions/dancing on the bar; violating the limited entertainment license by dancing on the tables and bar.
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