MIDDLEPORT
SLA cancels license, bar closes Friday
MIDDLEPORT — A Main Street bar with a history of health and criminal violations will be closed by the State Liquor Authority after the owner pleaded no contest to serving alcohol to a minor.
Dominick’s Place, 29 Main St., has had its liquor license canceled and was fined $1,000 for serving alcohol to an undercover agent on June 9, 2007.
It was not the first time the bar has been targeted by investigators.
William Crowley, a spokesman for the SLA, said the bar’s owner was charged with health and safety violations before— once in 2005 and three times in 2006.
The SLA ordered Dominick’s Place to close on Friday. Also, the bar’s owner, Kristine Louise Beyer, may not reapply for a liquor license for two years.
Middleport Police Chief John J. Swick said the bar has been in trouble since it opened in 2005. Before then, the bar was known as Spanky’s and before that, Turrell’s.
Crowley said Beyer was charged on Feb. 24, 2006, with permitting gambling, which is a violation of the Alcoholic Beverage Control law, and faced health and safety violation — alcoholic beverage containers contaminated with insects.
And on April 30, 2006, Dominick’s Place was charged with selling alcohol to a person under 21.
As a result of those violations, the bar was fined $5,000 — later reduced to $3,000.
Crowley said that after the most recent violation, the three-member board voted to cancel the bar’s license and levy a $1,000 fine.
In another case unrelated to the liquor authority, Dominick’s Place has been named by the DirecTV anti-fraud Web site as one of 14 bars across the country charged in a case of satellite fraud and piracy. DirecTV has said it is seeking damages — $100,000 per violation — against each bar .
