State Probing Agency’s Raids on Minority Bars

State auditors are looking into allegations that the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has engaged in “discriminatory enforcement” by stepping up raids on minority bars--particularly gay ones. The audit marks the latest round in a battle that began last fall between the ABC and factions of the gay, black and Latino communities after a dramatic increase in raids, primarily on gay bars and often during prime business hours.

According to the activists, many of the targeted bars--whether or not they are gay-oriented--are frequented by African Americans and Latinos.

State Auditor Kurt Sjoberg said auditors will compare the number of ABC actions in minority bars to those in other communities to determine if there is an imbalance. They also will conduct interviews of bar employees and customers.

Sjoberg called the $147,000 audit unusual because of the relatively small size of the agency being investigated and the significant amount of time it will involve--nearly 2,500 hours. It is scheduled for completion in about six months.

Activists applauded the undertaking, while an ABC official dismissed it as unnecessary.

Assistant ABC director Carl Falletta insisted that minority communities are not being singled out.

“Just because they have a town meeting and a bunch of people jump up and claim there’s a problem, does that justify spending $147,000 of the state’s money? It’s wasteful.”

But East Los Angles activist Richard Zaldivar said: “ABC government employees are doing what they think is right. But we need to take a hard look at whether they are also doing it fairly.”

Michael Schwieger said his Silver Lake disco, catering primarily to black and Latino gays, was hit by two raids within two months, both on busy nights.

One Friday night, a dozen officers entered about 10:30 p.m., and ordered the lights on and the music off, he said. Saying they had received complaints about underage patrons being served, the officers examined the bar’s licenses, forced about a dozen customers to show their identifications--and found no violations, he said.

A second raid occurred two months later, on a Saturday night, Schwieger said.

Schwieger said the two “ruined nights” and the lost business that resulted cost him $50,000.

“It used to be fun owning a bar,” he said. “Now, it’s become a nightmare.”

Many bar owners say they suspect that the raids are aimed at forcing them out of business. Nearly 100 bar owners from San Diego to San Jose, primarily owners of gay, black and Latino bars, have banded together as the Tavern Guild to legally challenge the regulatory agency.

They cite a February Los Angeles Police Commission study that found gay bars make up 1.4% of ABC licensees in Los Angeles but were the site of 2.9% of law enforcement actions last year.

“They enforce what they want, when they want to,” said Tavern Guild lawyer Robert Burke.

The ABC’s Falletta questioned how the Police Commission study was conducted and “whether it meant anything.”

“Maybe [the LAPD] just got more complaints about gay bars,” he said. “We go out and investigate complaints all the time. The fact that places are looked at means nothing.”

ABC enforcement, in fact, has increased across the board. The agency suspended nearly 900 alcohol licenses statewide in its fiscal year ending July 1--a better than 500% increase over the same period in 1994.

License revocations almost doubled during the same time.

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ABC spokesman Carl DeWing said the agency’s activity increased because the ABC was rehiring agents slashed during budget cuts in the early 1990s.

The demand for an audit came at a March “town meeting” in Silver Lake, where 500 residents, neighborhood activists and bar owners confronted ABC and LAPD officials.

Leaders of the Los Angeles Fire and Building and Safety departments, which had participated in ABC-led raids, effectively backed the protesters, saying they will no longer take part in ABC-led raids.

State Sen. Richard Polanco, (D-Los Angeles) then proposed the state audit, which was approved by the Legislature’s audit committee in May. Polanco said he pushed for the audit because “selective enforcement” may be occurring.

“We have double the amount of enforcement occurring in gay bars [as in straight ones]. The question is why. The last thing California taxpayers need are lawsuits” over this.

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Zaldivar, who helped organize the town meeting, called the ABC “an incredibly powerful bureaucracy. It has the might to go into places and interpret morality, based on its agents’ interpretations.

“So in straight bars, the ABC has no problem with liquor companies using [posters of] busty women bursting from their swimsuits, promoting football and the like. But if those agents go to a gay bar, they do not allow [posters of] similarly clad male models.”

Decorations that ABC officials objected to included a sculpted replica of Michelangelo’s “David” and were taken down, he said.

Falletta called such statements “paranoia.”

“There are administrative rules involving the display of nudity, and those rules are applied equally to gay and straight [establishments].”

ABC Director Jay Stroh said that his agents “have been up and down the state, meeting with various groups, including gay people, and we never have had any problems that we are aware of.

“I know we’ll be cleared. There’s no question about it. . . . We’ve never had a complaint by the gays against our investigators in my 14 years here. I have no idea what’s behind all this.”

Countered Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who chaired the Silver Lake meeting: ‘What’s happening now is a gathering of the facts. Nobody should be opposed to that.”’