Setting the bar higher

And you thought you knew how to bar-hop.

Det. Bryan Moore has you beat.

As the Newport Beach Police Department’s Alcohol Beverage Control Department liaison, Moore has the monumental task of hitting every upscale restaurant, trendy twentysomething party spot and dimly lit dive bar in Newport Beach by July if they have a permit to serve alcohol. Add in another 40 off-sale establishments — liquor stores and the like — and Moore will visit nearly 400 spots by June 30.

No, Moore is not sampling drinks. Instead, as the Police Department’s go-to guy for making sure the city’s alcohol establishments are up to code, he visits a few each day and inspects them for various Department of Alcohol Beverage Control violations.

“I figure I’ve got to hit about 10 a week,” Moore said.

Newport Beach has three times the state average for alcohol establishments per capita. In 2005, the city had the highest rate of alcohol-related collisions with injuries in the state per its population, though there was a slight decrease the next year. From 2005 to 2006, DUI arrests in Newport jumped 212, to a total of 597.

When Moore walks into a bar and says he’s with the police, the room goes silent. Bar owners and employees act nervous around him.

Moore does his best to get them to relax. After all, he’s not there to shut them down, he said.

His eyes are constantly moving, scanning the tables, bar tops, bottles and walls. Anything that could be a violation — graffiti on the walls or not having a proper sign or license visible — is noted. What he’s looking for are major violations, he said. Someone visibly intoxicated with a drink in their hand, drug paraphernalia or an underage drinker are all things that can lead to citations or arrests.

“It’s fine, it’s good that they check to see if everything is clean,” said Jolene Haley, bartender at the Beach Ball, as Moore shines a light into a tequila bottle. “He’s got to make sure everything is safe.”

This is the easy part of the job, he said. Nearly all of Newport Beach’s alcohol establishments, be it a place like Sharkeez, “a well-oiled machine” he said, the Beach Ball or a 7-11, are for the most part up to code. If there are minor items to fix, he simply leaves his card, makes a check on his inspection form and tells the merchant to fix it by the time he follows up. It’s a “broken windows” policy, he said.

“We like to keep it as worry free as possible,” said Ryan Gibney, a supervisor at Sharkeez, which had no violations when Moore inspected it. “One little slip-up and there goes the [alcohol] license.”

To work on the problems inherent in bars and liquor stores setting up in Newport Beach, Moore and other officers perform sting operations. They use kids from their Explorers program to ask adults to buy them alcohol outside liquor stores, or the Explorers try to purchase it themselves. Officers in plain clothes also monitor places on busy Friday and Saturday nights looking for serious violations, such as serving people obviously intoxicated or underage.

Before Moore’s position was created, enforcement efforts were scattered, depending on a designated officer and what other crimes and cases he or she had to work on. Now, “we have one guy at the center of it all,” Moore said.

ABC does not traditionally award the $100,000 grant to the same department more than two years in a row, police officials said. If Moore’s efforts work, and police and city officials want to make his position permanent, the city will likely have to absorb the position into the department’s budget, Sgt. Evan Sailor said.

Moore is planning a four-hour training class with more than 50 local bar and restaurant owners Sept. 22. Moore and ABC officials host training sessions every three months, he said.

BY THE NUMBERS

385

Total number of alcohol establishments in Newport Beach’s roughly 50 square miles. The total is triple the state average for cities per capita.

321

Bars and restaurants that sell alcohol you can drink at the business.

64

Liquor stores and convenience stores that sell alcohol to drink off the business premises.

6

Stings and undercover operations Newport Beach police plan to perform by June 30. The stings will remind locals and business owners not to sell alcohol to underage people.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].