“Nobody remembers serving her,” a representative from Lulu’s Lahaina told the LC Adjudication Board at the September 3 hearing.
The “her” in question was a 56-year-old woman who reportedly entered the bar around midnight on November 22, 2008. According to a statement later given to police, the woman had not visited any other bars. While at Lulu’s, she supposedly ordered two rum and Cokes followed by a Long Island ice tea, though she paid cash so there was no paper trail.
At around 1:50am, the woman exited Lulu’s and attempted to get in her car. Officers at the scene who observed her stumbling say they warned her not to drive but that she got into her car anyway, first attempting to enter through the passenger-side door.
As soon as the woman started to back out of her parking space, the cops confronted her. She was given a breath test and blew a 0.21, nearly three times the legal limit.
Initially, Lulu’s was hit with three related counts: serving to an already intoxicated individual; failing “to exercise due care” in determining whether an individual was intoxicated; and permitting an intoxicated individual to remain on the premises.
By the time the hearing rolled around, the charges had been pared down to one count, to which Lulu’s plead no contest. A lawyer speaking on behalf of the company reiterated that none of the servers recalled the woman (it was a busy night, shortly after the venue opened), but acknowledged that it’s “impossible to prove the negative.”
The board deliberated and slapped Lulu’s with a $2,000 fine, making the woman an expensive, if unmemorable, patron. Maui Time Weekly, Jacob Shafer
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