Tacoma bar on thin ice with liquor board after repeatedly violating COVID rules

It was a recent Friday night. Music spilled from outdoor speakers, where several groups of people stood around smoking cigarettes. Inside, the pool table was in full-swing. Only a few people were sitting; most were standing in groups, talking and drinking.

In normal times, such a sight would catch no one off-guard, not the least at a bar called An American Tavern.

But these are not normal times.

The bar at 744 Market St. in downtown Tacoma, located across the street from City Hall and on the ground floor of The Bridge Apartments, has repeatedly violated Washington state’s COVID-19 Safe Start rules for restaurants, according to records from police and the state Liquor and Cannabis Board.

Currently, bars and restaurants are to seat no more than six people to a table, and all bar seating is strictly off-limits. Games, including pool, are prohibited. Customers should not stand around, not even in a waiting area.

The state Liquor and Cannabis Board has issued several warnings to the owners of An American Tavern and is considering taking further action against the bar following a recent site visit.

Neighbors have called the Tacoma Police Department a dozen times since August. Five of those calls were related to an incident that occurred Oct. 17 when a fight broke out between two female patrons after one of them cut to the front of the bathroom line, police said.

One patron was hit with a bottle. The altercation moved outside, and other bar patrons followed. By the time police arrived on the scene just before 11 p.m., it appeared the incident had been resolved and the bar was closing, police said.

Co-owner Kyle Bidwell, reached by phone the evening of Oct. 22, referenced that latest police visit and said it was broken up and that it happened before 11 p.m

“Obviously we don’t want that stuff happening,” he said.

The previous night, Oct. 16, police received a call regarding violations of COVID-19 restrictions and noise. As is typical with COVID-related complaints, the police referred the anonymous caller to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, which is the first stop for Safe Start regulations at food-service businesses. An officer was not dispatched.

The News Tribune also witnessed patrons mingling around the pool table and outside around 9:20 p.m. on Oct. 16.

Police responded to two other complaints about the bar in the past few weeks.

The first came on Sept. 19 for alleged violations of COVID-19 rules. A male caller said groups exceeded the five-person limit and that the bar was staying open past 2 a.m., police said. The following Saturday, Sept. 25, police responded to a noise complaint. When officers arrived about 10 minutes later, at 10:53 p.m., the bar appeared to be closing for the evening, according to the police report.

When asked about police visits, Bidewell replied, “It’s a lot of people just calling the cops, being Karens or whatever.”

The term “Karen” refers to a trending meme that calls out a certain type of woman, usually white and middle-aged, who asks to speak to the manager or otherwise patrols other people’s behavior.

“Everything’s going good; we’re following all orders,” said Bidwell.

Pressed on the evidence of numerous police visits and liquor board citations, he said, “We haven’t broken any RCWs,” meaning legislative laws. He lamented that casinos, which are largely under sovereign tribal jurisdiction, can serve until 2 a.m. and have gaming.

His bar “shut down pool and darts for months and months and months,” he said, adding that other bars had violated COVID rules.

An American Tavern Facebook post on July 4 mentions “free pool,” and recent reviews on Google reference pool and a comedy show — prohibited under Safe Start rules since July.

LIQUOR BOARD WARNINGS

Reached by email, the state department of Labor and Industries referred The News Tribune to the Liquor and Cannabis Board, which issues and regulates liquor licenses for all bars and restaurants in Washington. (LNI has fined 11 businesses from July to September for mask violations, as well as several businesses, including gyms, for operating outside state guidelines.)

The liquor board visited An American Tavern on Oct. 15.

An enforcement officer inspected the bar after a complaint of COVID violations. Spokesperson Brian Smith confirmed to The News Tribune that the officer that Thursday night “witnessed there was no social distancing, large groups gathering in and around the premises with alcohol service after 11 p.m., with patrons playing pool.”

The bar had been cited twice previously in the past 12 weeks: Aug. 7 for patrons playing pool and Oct. 1 for serving alcohol after 10 p.m. (Gov. Jay Inslee updated the alcohol cutoff time to 11 p.m. five days later, Oct. 7.)

Per the liquor board’s enforcement escalation process, the officer has discussed Safe Start regulations with the bar’s owners several times. Next steps regarding the Oct. 15 incident are ongoing and are likely to result in further action, said Smith.

When pursuing a complaint, he explained, liquor board officers will first talk with the business owner about the issue and explain how to remedy it.

“In most cases, education is all that is needed to bring the licensee into compliance. If there were aggravating circumstances or the officer felt it required more than education, he can follow up with a written warning,” which would happen within a matter of days, he said.

Bidwell repeatedly insisted that the rules were nothing more than just that.

“Am I breaking a law?” he asked when pressed why the bar, unlike most of its peers, was allowing patrons to play pool and not requiring them to sit at tables.

Knowing that the liquor board has been tasked with ensuring its licensees are adhering to the regulations — and that it holds the right to suspend or revoke a license, during a pandemic or otherwise — did not seem to deter him.

“We would appeal,” he said.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT’S ROLE

The county health department could not locate specific records of complaints regarding An American Tavern, said spokesperson Dale Phelps, but that does not necessarily mean there have been none.

Phelps added that local health departments’ hands are tied when it comes to acting on COVID violations at businesses under their purview. They do not have the authority to punish a business for ignoring a rule issued by the governor’s office. Inslee’s Safe Start guidance falls in that court.

Instead, county health departments work “in a cooperative process” with the state Department of Health.

First, the local department forwards an initial complaint to the governor’s office. Then DOH would call the food-service business and “provide education.” A second complaint would trigger a site visit by the local health agency, which would submit a report back to DOH, and a third complaint would refer the case to the Attorney General’s Office, where all subsequent complaints would flow automatically.

Phelps said he could not say whether any cases of COVID-19 had been traced back to the bar because it does not meet the agency’s requirement for public disclosure.

The state DOH told the News Tribune it has not assigned any complaints about An American Tavern to its COVID enforcement division. Spokesperson Ginny Streeter said complaints received by DOH would be assigned to the “appropriate” state agency, which in this case “could have been” the liquor board.

As of Oct. 22, the liquor board did not have additional news to share of its next steps.