TRENTON N.J. New Jersey restaurateurs are feeling the sting of a directive issued by the state attorney general’s office in September that orders people stopped for drunken driving infractions to tell police where they consumed their last alcoholic beverage of the night.
Restaurants named in those interrogations are recorded into an electronic database used by the bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control to flag establishments that may be serving alcohol to already intoxicated customers. If its name shows up on the list more than five times, the operator could have its liquor license suspended.
Restaurateurs, however, say the rule is unfair because there is no way to verify if those people interrogated by police are telling the truth.
“What if [the police] pull someone over and the person fails the DWI test,” asked Richard Dorchak, chairman of the New Jersey Restaurant Association. “The person could give an erroneous place. What if the person was at a go-go bar and doesn’t want his girlfriend or wife to know so he gives another name? It just seems like a witch hunt.”