Bar employees checking IDs at the door will be held responsible for letting minors into restricted liquor establishments - joining servers and the bars themselves - under an ordinance passed unanimously by the East Lansing City Council at its Tuesday meeting.
Under the new ordinance, door attendants will be subject to the same misdemeanor offense as those under the previous law.
But the ordinance didn’t pass without some criticism. Councilmember Bill Sharp said the council should amend the ordinance to require a doorperson to wear a name identification tag.
“I am for the ordinance, but I think that it should be developed a bit more,” Sharp said.
City Attorney Dennis McGinty, who also supported the ordinance, said adding such a name identification requirement could serve to improve the law.
Although the city council did not vote to amend the proposal, it could revisit the measure to add such a requirement later.
“This method has been used in different states under similar ordinances,” McGinty said. “And an amendment that has been quite effective is to make the doorpersons wear name tags so if a minor is served, it is easier to remember the persons involved in the identification process if they have something that can make them easily identified.”
East Lansing police also support the ordinance. East Lansing police officer Dan DeKorte said that it will close the gap in the law that lets some bar employees slip through while bartenders and servers are punished.
“There is a loophole in the law that lets minors get into restricted establishments, and it is the responsibility of the servers,” DeKorte said. “Some minors get in by bribing the doorman with money, or they’ll have friends working.
“Now, they will get a misdemeanor if they let minors in.”
DeKorte said the department ran a sting operation last April where they had selected minors try to enter restricted establishments. Most of the minors were let into the establishments because the doorperson read the ID wrong or didn’t check.
“This ordinance will hold the doormen completely accountable,” DeKorte said.
Chris Fata, manager of The Spartan’s Sports Den, 1227 E. Grand River Ave., said he agrees with the ordinance.
“Before you could let anyone of any age in and the worst that would happen to the doorman was that he would get fired and get another job somewhere else,” Fata said. “This ordinance is definitely a good thing for establishments.”
In other business, the council approved a $247,981 contract to put mobile data computers in 14 patrol cars.
The East Lansing Police Department uses one radio frequency to dispatch information to the station, which can get crowded on busy nights. The computer system will allow the officers to pull up background information and use silent dispatch via computers.
The computers will make officers’ jobs easier and record-keeping more efficient, East Lansing Police Capt. Juli Liebler said.
The Lansing Police Department and MSU police have already installed the computers in some patrol cars. DeKorte said the department has been waiting for the computers for about five years.
“These computers will decrease the amount of time during a routine traffic stop by pulling up background information quicker,” DeKorte said. “This will be good for the cadets who dispatch the information back to us. Also, it will free up some of their time to do other things.”
Amanda Clapp can be reached at clappama@msu.edu.
