Stanton Tavern Loses Its License

A Stanton bar had its liquor license revoked Thursday for allowing waitresses to solicit customers for beers at inflated prices and for permitting the sale of cocaine on the premises.

“Our mission is to make communities stronger, and this obviously wasn’t a business that was adding value to the community,” Mark DeSio, a spokesman for the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said of the Extasis Caliente Nightclub in the 11000 block of Beach Boulevard.

“They weren’t operating within the law.”

A call to the company the ABC says operates the bar -- Bul Ya Song Inc. -- went unanswered late Thursday, and a lawyer representing the club could not be reached for comment.

The department’s investigation of Extasis Caliente began two years ago based on a tip that “people were being asked to buy the waitresses $3.25 beers for $10,” DeSio said.

“What would happen is that the waitress would come up and say, ‘Hey, if you buy me a beer I’ll sit with you awhile.’ ”

In addition, he said, investigators were told that employees frequently aided cocaine purchases.

Both activities are prohibited by the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Act of 1955.

The allegations were confirmed, DeSio said, by undercover agents who visited the bar three times in March 2002.

“On either offense their license could be revoked,” he said, “so on both offenses they were toast. We had an airtight case.”

He said the bar appealed the revocation before an administrative law judge, who recently upheld the action.

On Thursday the nightclub was notified that its license had been revoked and immediately closed its doors, DeSio said.

“The ABC always does things in threes,” he said. “If they go somewhere once, they will always go back two more times to make sure they have a case.

“Instead of arresting people on the spot, we just pulled the plug on the whole thing.”