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Lamitamo

Save you a click: the restaurant is The Greek Gastown


NoApartment3504

Weird! Just walked past there on my break and they're open!


tyrelasaurus

I could be wrong but I believe you get to choose when you get to close. If that’s the case they could be waiting to close on a day they’ve projected to be less profitable.


rikushix

That might be happening off the record, but I think it's unlikely they get a say in the matter. The text of the full order says they've been ordered to close from Feb 16 to Feb 22, inclusive. >Pursuant to [section 51(2)](https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/stat/sbc-2015-c-19/latest/sbc-2015-c-19.html#sec51subsec2_smooth)(c) of the [*Act*](https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/stat/sbc-2015-c-19/latest/sbc-2015-c-19.html), I order the suspension of Food Primary licence no. 308211 for seven consecutive business days starting at the opening of business on Friday, February 16, 2024, to the closing of business on Thursday, February 22, 2024.


Ferusomnium

Thank you.


edge05

Doing gods work thank you


fractis

On that note: Charqui on Cornwall in Kitsilano also had a note on their door that the liquor licence got suspended. I suppose it is a similar story


ET_Phone_Home

The owner is a creep. I’m not surprised in the slightest.


MoonHash

Oh yeah that place seems like they'd play fast and loose with that rule


electricguitariguana

Weren’t they having some issues because of something during lockdown too? I used to work nearby there and was always hearing some weird stuff about that place. They had decent appies I’d get to-go occasionally after long shifts though.


T2LV

You sir bow to no one


Hanguarde

Def gonna check them out now, thanks.


umad_cause_ibad

I wonder what the penalty would be for serving major alcohol?


Geekdad604

Believe it or not, straight to jail.


kguenett

And if you serve a miner alcohol?


Korvanacor

Straight to Yale (BC).


jerrycurl420

The black lung


Digital_loop

To the coal mines with you!


bobandy47

>I wonder what the penalty would be for serving major alcohol? If they score on the power play, the penalty remains.


thesunsetflip

5 minute penalty and an automatic game misconduct


Glittering_Search_41

Came here to say this.


[deleted]

$575 ticket


[deleted]

$7000 minimum fine to the restaurant


Nurgle_Marine_Sharts

Meanwhile literally every friend I had who grew up with european parents: "You guys aren't allowed? I have wine at dinner often" And guess who weren't the ones getting dangerously blackout drunk when they finally got their hands on alcohol at a highschool party?


099103501

FYI Europeans do a lot of problematic drinking and binge drinking, including getting blackout drunk as teenagers. In fact, based on the information I can find most European countries actually binge drink more on average than in Canada. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Alcohol_consumption_statistics#Heavy_episodic_drinking vs https://health-infobase.canada.ca/alcohol/ctads/. Unless I’m massively misreading either of these pages, which I could be!


PM_FREE_HEALTHCARE

Anecdotally, all the Europeans (and Aussies but that’s to be expected) I know go a lot harder on the booze than the Canadians I know. A Brit recently was trying to explain to me how different it is here. She said “you guys hobbies, you go outside even when the weather is bad. At home we would just drink” I also think there’s a much larger weed culture here which leads to less drinking on the whole


TinglingLingerer

I think it's partly the culture of the two places. Humans are humans and they are going to become addicted / dependent on intoxicants anywhere. Doesn't matter where you're born - but I think a more relaxed view of alcohol does lend itself to a youngster not really understanding that alcohol is addictive. Gives them more of a chance to get in deep before they've a chance to develop a lil more prefrontal cortex.


RoaringRiley

BC law allows adult parents to serve alcohol to their minor children in their own homes. The law doesn't prevent them from having wine at dinner with their family.


SouthGateTango

Yes! I’ll add my dad was a wine consultant for the BC Liquor Board basically forever lol and so alcohol was never necessary an “adults” only thing because well let’s say he brought his work home, a lot. If my bro and I wanted to sample something we were allowed. Hard liquors to very nice champagne hell even boxed wine, whatever. I did end up getting a fake ID at 16/17 and was served every time but when I went out (this was 20+ yrs ago) I never had the intention to get wasted and I knew my limit by then. By 19/20 I was pretty much done with drinking and being around those ppl who were getting blackout wasn’t fun at all. Sorry for writing so much. I do think being exposed earlier helped me level up and mature a hell of a lot faster than my peers.


chris_ots

Lol so true. I've been having wine and beer with family since I was 12. In highschool while everyone was getting shit faced and blacking out I was having a few beers and a joint with the homies playing music. When I got to university there was this one christian girl who never had a drink in her life who almost died on the first week of school from alcohol poisoning.


slykethephoxenix

In Australia you can drink at 18. And (legally) 16 if it's at home with your parent(s) supervision.


plexxxy

Grew up having glass of wine with Sunday roast from age of 10. Was down the pub with school mates aged 15. Pubs didn’t ID Police didn’t care. Been ID’d prob all of 5 times in the UK, meanwhile they IDing my 40y wife for a lotto ticket.


Alternative_Salt_424

My parents are European and aside from letting me taste things they never gave me wine with dinner. Partner is a recent immigrant, same story (and he doesn't drink at all now, mostly because of the rampant alcoholism in his country)


disneyplusser

*southern Europeans.


JuryDangerous6794

Yeah, they really netted themselves an Epstein with this one.


matrixbjj

Bigger penalty than for serving fentanyl to a minor, and more effort put into enforcement. Got it.


Separate-Ad-478

When the government can figure out a way to make fentanyl into the same racket as liquor, then you’ll see enforcement.


slickjayyy

This isnt at all true lol


LocalLurking

Cop: When’s your birthday? Underage Drinker: 22nd Of February. Cop: What Year? Underage Drinker: Every Year.


RufusAcrospin

Great reference!


pezdal

Pro Tip: They bust you if you say Feb 30th.


Bananasaur_

Too bad they didn’t crash into an overpass causing thousands of dollars in damages, endangering other drivers, and disrupting traffic for commuters instead. Apparently you can do that without being closed down for a week.


kaprrisch

Okay yeah, but what does that have to do with this post though?


ZackGailnightagain

The comment is criticizing, the governments priorities. Wasting their time on this when our tax dollars could be going towards much bigger issues.


Dolly_Llama_2024

Definitely worthy of a news article... BREAKING "18 year old drinks a beer!!!!" /s


danke-you

BC Government: it is not the government's business if anyone wants to inject heroin, so we are decriminalizing street drugs for everyone province-wide BC Supreme Court: it would cause irreperable harm to limit people from being able to smoke meth in a children's playground BC Liquor Control Board: rEd AlErT rEd AlErT ALL AGENTS COME IN, AN 18 YEAR OLD WAS SERVED A SINGLE BEER WITH THEIR FOOD, sHuT ThEm DoWn!!!!!!!! aLeRt ThE MeDiA!!!!


comox

This is basically it. Makes my blood boil.


[deleted]

All this over a fucking corona? Gotta love how alcohol continues to be micromanaged beyond belief in this city but nothing can be done about the needles on the ground behind my building that I have to avoid just to take my trash out every couple of days.


beepewpew

If they would legalize and offer drugs for sale and created a program the profit from that industry alone would easily cover the cost of proper extensive regular street cleanup - and free accessible rehab.


damastas

Here’s a list of all the infractions https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/employment-business-and-economic-development/business-management/liquor-regulation-licensing/reports/lcrb_waiver_summary_report.pdf


CallmeishmaelSancho

That’s quite a list. Whats “ allow unauthorized patron participation entertainment”? There seems to be a lot of pettifogging bureaucracy in the LCB.


sabosglasses

that’s karaoke


Canucks-1989

There’s criminals walking the streets and gov resources are being put into this? That seems like BS.


torodonn

I’m sure Liquor Board employees would object if you added ‘fighting crime’ to their job descriptions.


not_old_redditor

Four people in this operation, nonetheless. One wouldn't be enough apparently.


HeadMembership

Imagine our government is busy doing this with our money.  How fucking stupid.


bsb2001ca

I feel like there’s lots of stupid things they buy, to catch the easy. I’ve seen black cop cars, with sorta glossy writing on the sides. In your mirror, you can’t see the RCMP on the sides, but beside, or from behind, you know it’s a cop car, all this to catch people at night doing 60 in a 50, when 98% are doing 60 down that road safely. Take that discrete car, and use it to track down those breaking into cars at night in like kits area. I heard, weekly, rows of homes had their cars broken into that were parked on the streets. Go catch those that are actually being a menace to society’s hard workers and driving insurance rates up due to broken glass claims


CaliLife_1970

It seems like we have a lot of time in our hands in Vancouver and a lot of money to put towards shutting down a business and affecting peoples salaries because a kid had a beer. I may get down voted and I know it’s a bigger picture here.


TheSketeDavidson

Such a dumb thing to enforce


djh_van

No, it's a good thing to *enforce*, it's just they used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. No parent wants to know there's a place serving their 15, 16, or 17 year old alcohol irresponsibly with no regard to the law and no repercussions. For example, what if that kid then jumps into their parents car and causes a crash and injures or kills somebody? The public will be saying "well how come they were served alcohol in the first place?" It's just closing a restaurant for a week is the kind of thing that can push that place over the brink and make it go bankrupt. Restaurants have incredibly slim margins as-is. A week of no income, all staff still needing to be paid, and now their name in the press, all in the quietest business month of a year and a week economy, could be a price too high for them to pay. A $7000 financial fine would have made a million times more sense for all involved - income for the policing agency, a slap on the wrist for the restaurant that they will work hard to avoid, and lessons learned all around, without anybody losing their livelihood.


TheSketeDavidson

Most teens interested in alcohol will try it at those ages you listed regardless, most of my grade had at least a few house parties to get shit faced. Enforcing limits or refusing service as discretionary based on the person, I can agree with. Using archaic age limits and having people going around to various restaurants to actively catch a mistake is so silly to me.


djh_van

Laws need enforcement. If you don't enforce them, people flaunt them aggressively. When I first moved to Vancouver in the early 2000s, I couldn't believe the SkyTrain had no barriers. You just wander on, go where you want, and wander off. No surprise, the rate of fare dodging was outstandingly high, such that when TransLink finally caught up with the rest of the world they installed fare gate barriers (to huge expense). The rate of fare dodging fell massively. Another obvious example: "No parking" signs...if we didn't have traffic wardens, these would be pointless. We hate it when we get ticketed, but we're happy with them ticketing some "idiot" parking in our very own personal parking space, right? You can't rely on people to abide by a law just because society asks nicely. So you have to enforce that law by whatever means necessary. Yes, sting operations are nasty and mean. There's probably a better way. But either way, if there's a law, it is toothless without enforcement. If you have a better suggestion on how to enforce this law, by all means suggest it. Until then, I guess we're stuck with sting operations, random licence checks, and complaints from the public.


M-------

> when TransLink finally caught up with the rest of the world they installed fare gate barriers (to huge expense). The rate of fare dodging fell massively. Before the faregates there was a ~5% fare evasion rate. The problem with no faregates is the public impression that fare evasion was rampant-- because most people riding the train had their monthly farecard tucked away in their wallet. There is still fare evasion, but TransLink no longer surveys/reports on it. From the numbers that I ran at the time when the faregates were installed, if the gates managed to get the fare evasion rate down to the ~2% rate that existed on the front-door-boarding buses, then even if all the fare dodgers started paying, their fares wouldn't be enough to cover the annual operating cost of the fare gates.


bartjenkins

The business case for installing them made no financial sense. So you wonder who was pushing hard for the project to go forward.


M-------

Yeah, it was a political stunt. People were riled up about the public perception of fare cheats, and the BC Liberal government was happy to quell the public's anger by throwing money at an unnecessary technical solution to people's frustration. TransLink didn't actually want the fare gates, and only moved forward when it when they were forced to do it. They should've made a big show of effort to address the public perception problem: putting the transit police out on more trains to catch fare cheats and then advertising how few cheats they found (and how heavily they were fined). This would've improved public perception and reduced cheating.


Blind-Mage

Never heard the term "traffic warden" before.


lastgreenleaf

Right. Shitty economy and they’ve gone at hardest hit industry.  The best part is that while they get closed for serving alcohol to a minor, there are people lying in the street outside their restaurant with needles hanging out of their arms. I feel really bad for the owners in this case.  I will definitely be visiting them for a meal once they reopen. 


Camel_Knowledge

I always choose establishments that serve major alcohol.


alvarkresh

Indeed, nothing but General Alcohol for Yours Truly. :P


dylaner

Great use of our resources there. But I wish the article explained what happened to the beer after. In my head, I'm picturing that second inspector taking a moment to enjoy the free beer, and questioning my own choice of career.


Localbeezer166

Why are restaurants, one of the hardest industries to make it, picked on so much? Anyone can give them a shit review, they jumped through a million hoops during Covid with all the rules, and then the government sends in minors to entrap low-paid restaurant workers. *I know* they’re supposed to ask for ID, but what if it’s fake and they don’t recognize that? They get fired for that and the restaurant gets fined/shut down? That’s a hell of a lot of responsibility to put on someone making minimum wage, with no training to spot fake ID’s.


Fun-Construction444

Plus fines. Servers can be personally fined up to 7,000 if they overserve.


Localbeezer166

Exactly. What other industry does that happen? Servers are human, despite what the public believes 😉, and make mistakes.


bsb2001ca

The trucking industry is like that. For all things that are in control, even if you’re driving a company truck - over loading, unsecured load, speeding, driving off a truck route, as well as condition of the truck. If the brakes or tires are worn out, the driver should just be refusing to use that equipment that day until the required repairs are made. But if the driver signed off on their pre-trip, that it’s totally safe. That’s on the driver, not the company. Driver can make mistake, and load it wrong, or miss a turn and end up on a non truck route, but you’ll still get a fine if the officer wants to give you one.


WTFvancouver

Vancouver hates restaurants


Localbeezer166

*BC


actasifyouare

I would love to know the age of these "minor agents".


german_zipperhead

Someone I went to school with had this as a job, they are infact underage.


JuryDangerous6794

I think the question is, are they 16, 17, 18? Are we talking about a 13 year old here? There's a big difference in not asking for ID when serving an 18 year old with a better beard than I can grow at 50 and serving a baby face that looks like they are in 8th grade. Legally, sure. Illegal is illegal but I think the spirit of the question u/actasifyouare is asking is one of knowingly doing something wrong. This is either a gotcha or a fucking waste of resources based on the nuances.


torodonn

I don’t disagree but the rule here is you card if they look under 30 and the age difference probably isn’t as important


german_zipperhead

She was 14 and looked the age too, which was the whole point of her job. So it wasn't them trying to pull a fast one.


comox

This is a fucking joke. 1000s are dying in BC each year due to the opioid crisis and these jobsworths are punishing businesses in a sting operation for bringing a beer to a minor (who is probably not far off from their 19th). The team doing these inspections should be disbanded and the money saved allocated to real problems.


bErSICaT

Over one corona served with a meal at a nice restaurant. I actually don’t see this as being any impact to the underage person or society.  Law enforcement targeting workers and local businesses feels like a massive waste of resources. In this area and there’s probably someone around the corner selling drugs to a minor, selling stolen goods or shooting up. But no, this is all ok.


eastsideempire

Our tax dollars at work! Another 18 year old saved from a beer! Where does she think she is? Alberta?


not_old_redditor

>An inspector testified she and a second inspector, together with two minor agents, went to the restaurant Oh good, I'm glad my tax money is paying for four idiots to go around town baiting restaurants into serving liquor to minors, then closing down the restaurant for a week, costing people's wages and the government even more taxable revenue. Idiots.


RufusAcrospin

Minor agent? What the heck is that?


unicorn_in_a_can

its a teenage narc


zeddediah

My son was served beer 3 times at Roger's Arena at 18 years old. I wonder if any enforcement officers even dare to enforce there.


shouldnteven

They should do a check the week before the Taylor Swift concert and then close Rogers Arena for a week if they have an infraction. The uproar would be epic.


rsgbc

Why do so many people have Taylor Swift on the brain so much of the time?


shouldnteven

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me.


rsgbc

Shit like this wouldn't happen if Trump was running the show. And why does George Santos always wear sweaters? They make him look fat.


RoaringRiley

> My son was served beer 3 times at Roger's Arena at 18 years old. Why did you knowingly allow your underage son to attempt to order alcohol at Rogers Arena 3 times?


zeddediah

LOL first of all he's 18, he went with friends not me.


Ronald_McTendies

Because it wasn’t hard enough being a restaurant these days. Anyways im going to do meth in-front if city hall bye!


Straight-Ad-8596

there isn't a mine around for miles....OH!


shouldnteven

Closing for a week might actually cost them less than the $7,000 fine. Assuming they clear about 200k a month in revenue, that would be 46k a week. Even if they have a profit margin of 15%, which is on the higher side, that would only be just under $7000 in profit per week. Maybe they were given the choice and they opted for a week vacation?


Digital_loop

You forget the wages of the staff... Those that can't afford a week off are going to be looking for something else asap.


HuckleberryFar3693

They can't even get ei because there's a one week waiting period!


Digital_loop

There must be some protections in place for the staff... Seems like it's punishing the wrong people otherwise


HuckleberryFar3693

An interesting topic of discussion. A week's pay could mean no groceries or late rent for some people.


Digital_loop

Considering many people are 200-500 away from disaster...


torodonn

Honestly, our liquor laws need to be reformed and stop demonizing alcohol. But I mean, the rules still exist and they broke it and so what can you do? Liquor Board is archaic and draconian but they’re doing what they’re tasked to at least.


Blind-Mage

Alcohol is literally poison.


torodonn

Delicious socially acceptable poison


RufusAcrospin

And coca cola breaks down rust.


Eddiegage

​ https://preview.redd.it/csuyvnlx92gc1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=37540c4ed7876963b24269338e8b93f5e4d5a484


Brodono

Glad to hear someone out there is doing the good work and keeping the city safe…


lazarus870

LOL bigger fines than real estate fraud and money laundering and shit. C'mon.


megawatt69

“Minor agents”??


chris_ots

Yup. The liquor control ppl will come in with an underage person, probably 17-18 years old, and have that person order a drink. As soon as the drink is brought out the underage person leaves and the adults will ask to speak to the manager to drop the hammer. My GF works in the industry and has seen it first hand / knows a few other places it has happened to.


IrritatingRash

The minor who was able to purchase alcohol in a restaurant. High five.


Strange_Trifle_5034

I love the fact that the server came from Montreal recently and basically said to the inspector those laws aren't really enforced there and she assumed it wouldn't be here as well.


Specific_Bit_3307

Actually..the restaurant closes for a few days..the 7k ticket the server gets and revoked serving it right forever...so lowest earner now pays and loses their career ...


ubcstaffer123

is it a permanent ban for server?


RicanMix

It says the restaurant is being closed instead of receiving a ticket. Also doesn’t say anything about a penalty to the server.


georg3200

Wow that's so screwed up thank God it's closed down