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Margate Resident said city’s new Bottle Club law may jeopardize public safety
• Is risk taker culture right for Margate?
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Saturday,
May 29, 2010
Margate resident Rich Alianiello criticized city commissioners last week for expanding the city’s Bottle Club law. “It’s a wrong move to do,” said Alianiello, “It just leads to other problems.”
Margate City Commissioners voted in February to allow Bottle Clubs in three of the city’s business districts. At their May commission meeting, city officials expanded bottle club licenses to all five business districts in the city, allowing for one bottle club license in each district.
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“We’re going to have people carrying liquor to these places in coolers, beer, wine; it’s going to be open…,” Alianiello said.
Similar to the concerns of Fort Lauderdale and Pompano residents in the 1980s and 1990s, where bottle clubs spawned a culture of late night risk takers, Alianiello sees bottle clubs in Margate as a threat to community well being. He expressed concerns to the commission over the potential for an increase in Driving under the Influence (DUI) and said he doesn’t feel comfortable allowing people to travel to and from bars with their own liquor.
“Rich, that’s not the way it works, you’re absolutely wrong in what you’re saying, that’s not the way it works,” Margate Commissioner, David McLean told Alianiello. “It’s not open containers,” McLean said.
The way bottle clubs work is that patrons or club members bring their own libations (liquor, beer, wine) to a licensed bottle club, whose employees then dispense the libations back to the patrons who brought the libations.
Bottle club customers can then either leave their closed containers at the club or take containers with them when they leave.
The application fee to obtain a bottle club license is $150 vs. $150,000 to obtain a license that allows operators to sell liquor, beer and wine.
Bottle clubs cannot and are not licensed to sell liquor, but can obtain a restaurant license to sell food and soft drinks.
Margate law allows bottle clubs to operate 24/7, 365 days a year.
Because bottle clubs don’t sell liquor, there is a gray line as to whether bottle club servers and bartenders can be held responsible for over serving patrons and / or if a bottle club is liable for an auto accident caused by a patron leaving their premises intoxicated.
BSO Sheriff and Margate resident, Al Lamberti, was instrumental as a BSO Captain in raiding bottle clubs for illegal activities in the 80s.
Lamberti led an undercover operation in 1988 where agents bought alcohol, pot and cocaine at the Friends and 48th Street Bottle Clubs in Pompano, leading to the arrest of owners who, among other things, were charged with illegal sales of alcohol and illegal gambling.
Police confiscated 85 cases of alcohol, six electronic poker machines, four handguns and $3,600 in the 4:30 a.m. raid, Lamberti told Sun-sentinel reporters at the time.
The year before, Deerfield cops busted bottle club employees at the Talk of the Town Bottle Club at 3 a.m. for selling liquor without a license.
• In December 1990, cops arrested employees of The Club and Lock & Key in Oakland Park at 4:45 a.m. for the unlicensed sales of alcoholic beverages.
• In 1991, employees at the Club Eldorado bottle club near Pompano Beach were charged with drug possession and the illegal sales of alcoholic beverages at 3:30 a.m.
• In 1994, employees of Side Traxx on Federal Highway in Pompano were busted at 4 a.m. selling liquor to undercover agents.
In large part, bottle clubs are associated with illicit activities such as drug use, drug sales, unlawful gambling and prostitution. Some bottle clubs promote the swingers lifestyle, where consensual partners exchange mates and have sex.
To a lesser extent, bottle club licenses can apply to veteran organizations like the VFW, American Legion and other non-profits.
Bottle clubs have been thriving for years in many parts of unincorporated Broward -- some as low key as the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars and some as wild and crazy as Fort Lauderdale’s Slammer Sex Club for men, which are busiest in the wee hours.
The question Alianiello has for Margate commissioners is why the city is promoting bottle clubs while at the same so desperately trying to change the city’s image for the better.
“We have people out there a lot of who are irresponsible. They drink, they drive, they get in the car and kill somebody. I don’t want that to happen and I don’t think anyone up there (commissioners) wants that to happen either,” Alianiello said.
Mayor Joseph Varsallone had words of wisdom for Alianiello.
“People can get drunk any place at all. They can get drunk under a tree and they can get drunk in any bar. The problem is when people completely ignore the fact that they are becoming intoxicated,” Varsallone said.
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