Liquor Board

The city Liquor Board voted in favor of renewing the restaurant Milan's liquor license Thursday night, despite some objections from Little Italy residents. A few voiced concerns over loud noise, parking problems and garbage, but the major issue that would have led the board to revoke the restaurant's license was whether it had been using outside promoters. The restaurant explicitly agreed not to use outside promoters when the liquor board approved its license in July, board records show.

Don't sell six-packs of beer to 19-year-olds and don't sell drinks to the band at 3 in the morning. Those were the messages handed down last week -- in the form of $500 fines -- by the Howard County Liquor Board.The board found that on Feb. 9 Skylight Liquors of Elkridge sold a six-pack of Miller's Genuine Draft to Jamie Kendrick, 19, who was working undercover for the Howard County Police Department, according to a Liquor Board order that described his public testimo- ny at a board meeting.

The Baltimore liquor board reversed yesterday a decision it made in August to void the liquor license of a Ridgely's Delight tavern owner. The board's reversal amounts to a concession that it had misinterpreted state law when it voided James C. Quigley's license. At a hearing in August, board members said they had no choice under the law but to void a license that had been pending transfer for 180 days or more. Quigley's license had been in such a state for about three years because of construction delays.

Licensees of a Baltimore County restaurant have been fined $1,500 and ordered to stop serving alcohol for seven days -- penalties that are subject to review by federal bankruptcy officials.The Baltimore County liquor board levied the penalties against Lambis I. Platsis and Konstantin I. Platsis, owners of Mykonos restaurant in Towson.They were charged with violations in 1990 and 1991, and for an incident Aug. 8 when an undercover county police cadet was served alcohol without being asked to produce identification.

All the restaurants now in business in Carroll County ought to raise a glass in thanks to the liquor board. The board just approved a new regulation that requires any new restaurant to operate for at least 90 days before applying for a liquor license. That rule guarantees there won't be many new restaurants opening in this county any time soon.The board has the misguided notion that this new regulation will ensure that restaurants will obtain most of their revenue from food rather than liquor sales.

The job of Carroll County's liquor board is to regulate the sale of alcohol. The board, however, sees itself in a different light: As a temperance society to suppress the sale of alcohol. Considering some of its decisions in recent years, the board's orientation has been to make the retail sale of liquor, beer and wine as difficult as possible. The board's peculiar perspective on its duties may explain county restaurateurs' recent outburst against the board.Members of the liquor board must accept the fact that in Maryland circa 1995 alcohol is a legal substance.

Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden has forced liquor board Chairman William R. Snyder to resign after months of pressure from the county's Licensed Beverage Association, which says Mr. Snyder favored big business over local tavern operators.Mr. Hayden would not comment on the resignation, calling it a personnel matter, but Mr. Snyder and the attorney for the tavern owners agreed on the reasons for it."We . . . petitioned our government, and they apparently heard it," said David Mister, the beverage association's lawyer.

Amid reports of conflicts of interest at Baltimore's liquor board, a new citywide task force will determine whether state senators should scrap the patronage system that has driven the agency for more than 60 years.A majority of Baltimore's nine state senators -- who have maintained the patronage system -- said yesterday that there should be some changes at the board.The chairman of the city's Senate delegation said that the task force will study potential reforms and recommend whether employees of the board, who are political appointees, should be hired through a system like civil service.

Thursday's 1 p.m. docket for the regular meeting of Baltimore's Board of Liquor License Commissioners contained a who's who of venerable Inner Harbor restaurants, including one that has occupied the same spot since the waterfront became a tourist attraction in the early 1980s. The board's 3 p.m. docket contained a who's who of venerable strip clubs on The Block, one with a liquor license that dates to at least 1950, and others that have occupied the same spots on East Baltimore Street under one name or another on the famed burlesque strip that dates back to the Roaring '20s.