The Baton Rouge Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control raided Bogie’s Bar and Grill on East Boyd Drive in a joint operation this past Thursday night.
The ATC received a complaint about underage drinking at the bar. Five or six undercover agents arrived at the bar at 11 p.m. to make observations and confirm the validity of the complaint.
“When they entered the place in plain clothes, there were not many people in there at all,” said ATC enforcement director Steve Spalitta. “We sent in a 19-year-old operative who was able to enter and purchase an alcoholic beverage.”
Spalitta said about 500 patrons arrived within 40 minutes.
Spalitta said the doorman yelled to the underage patrons in the bar to take their wristbands off when uniformed agents arrived at the bar at 11:55 p.m. Patrons must be 21 or older to wear a wristband in the bar.
The agents entered the bar and checked all IDs in about an hour and 15 minutes. Spalitta said 299 people were under the drinking age, and 178 were at least 21 years old. He said agents issued 32 criminal citations.
“[The number of citations] would have been higher if we [had] had more agents,” he said. “We were fairly limited on manpower because we weren’t expecting 500 people.”
Spalitta said the patrons and employees at the bar cooperated with the agents.
“Underage consumption [of alcohol] is always going to be a problem, but most of the bars do a good job,” he said. “We just try to control and regulate it. We’re not trying to close the bar down by no means.”
Spalitta said the bar’s owner will be issued a ticket on Thursday, and the case will be assessed in four to eight weeks. He said the case may go to trial if an agreement is not reached, and the charges will be adjudicated by ATC Commissioner Murphy Painter.
—–Contact Angelle Barbazon at [email protected]