BROOKINGS — The LaCantina Restaurant in Brookings is in danger of no longer being able to sell alcohol starting next year following a 6-1 vote by the City Council at Tuesday night’s meeting to oppose the renewal of a liquor license.

The decision came in the wake of testimony from one of the restaurant’s owners, Ray Aranda of Brookings, that left councilors seemingly perplexed and with more than a few questions. The only “yes” vote for the renewal came from Mayor Oepke “Ope” Niemeyer.

That said, there are several things worth noting, according to information from the city:

• The oppose vote by the City Council is only a recommendation. It will be forwarded to the South Dakota Department of Revenue, which makes the final decision on alcoholic beverage licenses when it comes to issuing, suspending or revoking them.
• The license itself is formally known as an on-sale convention liquor license, and it’s held by Park Hospitality, which owns Brookings Inn at 2500 Sixth St. The restaurant is inside the hotel.
• The City Council can also reconsider its vote, but it would have to do so before a final decision is made at the state level.
• LaCantina Restaurant can continue to serve alcohol through Dec. 31. Tuesday night’s decision does not affect the current license, only whether or not it will be renewed in 2025. 
• The restaurant passed its most recent alcohol compliance check in September. Prior to that, however, it had failed checks in 2022, 2023 and earlier this year.

Councilor Bonny Specker opened the questioning, focusing on the restaurant’s mitigation efforts after it came up short in previous compliance checks.

“I would like more explanation of during the last three failures, what took place to remedy the problem?” Councilor Bonny Specker asked.

Aranda explained that the restaurant has 12 waiters — with a maximum of six on duty at one time — and that they know they have to get identification from the customers who are buying alcohol.

“I tell the waiters every time, ‘You have to ask for ID,” he said, adding that the wait staff isn’t always perfect when it comes to remembering those instructions.

To address that problem, Aranda said one of the remedies was to buy a pair of ID scanners for employees to use. “Now they have to scan every ID, so … I don’t think (violations) would happen again.”

When Specker pressed for details about frequency of scanner usage, Aranda said the devices are used on a nightly basis, with an emphasis placed on Thursdays, which he described as a “super busy” evening due to a drink promotion on that particular night which attracts college-age customers.

Next up to bat was Councilor Brianna Doran, who had a scanner-related question.

“Do you use the scanners for every person or what is the determining factor for when to use the scanner or not?” she inquired.

“I told the waiters, ‘You can tell who’s underage,’ — kids, college kids and everything,” Aranda said. “If you see someone there who’s like 60, obviously you’re not going to use the scanner with them. Just like when you take the test, if they look over 40, then you don’t ask for ID. But now we ask everyone.”

“Sure. OK, so you use the scanner for if they appear under 30, but otherwise you do ask for ID?” Doran asked.

“We ID everyone,” Aranda clarified. “We (had) those problems before where they have fake IDs and stuff like that, so now we have those scanners.”

The hardest-hitting observation of the night might have come from Councilor Nick Wendell, who noted that Aranda’s testimony left a degree of uncertainty regarding LaCantina’s ability to prevent underage consumption on all nights of the week, and the impression that it was only being caught for violations on Thursdays due to the compliance checks by the Brookings Police Department.

“I want to understand a little bit more what your training process is for staff,” he said. “I understand you have the scanners in place now, but if you’re on-boarding one of your dozen new staff members — which I understand it is probably hard to ensure that there is uniform practice across all 12 staff members — what does your onboarding process look like? Whether it’s happening on a Thursday night or not, every day of the week … how do you train your staff to ensure there isn’t underage consumption?”

Aranda said waiters receive training and are also required to take a class along with a test. If a waiter doesn’t comply, they will be fired, Aranda said. All that said, though, some employees might still make mistakes, he said.

“Even one of my managers, he got caught selling underage on one of those days, too,” Aranda said, referring to a previous compliance violation. “There’s not much I can do. I tell them every time, but we serve up to 700 people a night. If you go there on a Thursday, it’s super busy. It’s impossible for me to keep track of every waiter asking ID. It’s just way too much work.”

That said, Aranda emphasized that LaCantina’s use of the ID scanners is paying dividends, in the sense that the business passed its most recent alcohol compliance check, which occurred in September.

City records show that Park Hospitality has held this on-sale convention liquor license in excess of 20 years. The license itself is one of two that state law allows each municipality to have, with the following stipulations:

• Municipalities of 20,000 or greater: Hotel-motel convention facility for hosting large groups with at least 100 suitable lodging rooms, and convention facilities with seating for at least 400 persons.
• Municipalities of less than 20,000: Hotel-motel convention facility for hosting large groups with at least 40 suitable lodging rooms, and convention facilities with seating for at least 150 persons.

Other business

At Tuesday night’s meeting, councilors also:

• Witnessed the pinning ceremony for new BPD officers Lisa Walterman and Remi Master.
• Heard a year-to-date finance report from Finance Director Ashley Rentsch. Long story short, there aren’t any surprises among the numbers and all is within norms for this time of year.
• On a pair of 7-0 votes, approved union agreements with BPD employees and city general employees, with both groups represented by Teamsters Local Union No. 120.
• Approved, on a 7-0 vote, an adjustment to this year’s street maintenance and overlay project, which was awarded to Bowes Construction, increasing its cost by $127,664.57 for a total of $1,334,145.92. This remains below the original engineer’s estimated cost of $1,447,865.50.

The change was due to “unforeseen subsurface conditions” in Seventh Street as well as “the addition of 14th Avenue between Third and Fourth Street due to pavement failure that was deemed imminent.”

• Gave the green light, on a 7-0 vote, to a commercial corridor design review overlay district site plan near the intersection of 20th Street South and 22nd Avenue South.

The site will be the future home of a Circle K convenience store. It’s expected to be 5,200 square feet in size and will include gas and an attached car wash.

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.