The ransomware attack has Baltimore City’s municipal systems still somewhat-paralyzed, making police data and reports difficult to access. Instead, we will focus this week’s issue of Booze News on publicly available data from one of the biggest liquor-licensed establishments in the city, the only business in the city with a 24-hour liquor license: the Horseshoe Casino.
Licensees’ attorneys for corner stores and neighborhood taverns often complain that their clients are held to a higher standard while large institutions are ignored. They argue that the owners of large establishments like the sports stadiums and the Horseshoe Casino, places where patrons regularly become intoxicated, fight and cause damage, are not held accountable to the extent that smaller businesses are.
Let’s look a little closer at this question.
The Horseshoe Casino opened to the public in August 2014. It is policed by the Casino Entertainment District of the Baltimore City Police Department, and it is the only business licensed to sell alcohol between the hours of 2am and 6am. This means that patrons from other local bars and taverns often come to the casino after 2am, having already consumed alcohol.
In 2015, the Baltimore Brew reported that assaults in the area around the casino had increased by 475% in the four months after the casino opened to the public. Fights broke out during opening weekend and seem to have continued regularly since then.
Baltimore Brew: More drunks and fighting reported at Horseshoe than at other casinos
Baltimore Sun: Fight in food court at Horseshoe Casino Baltimore [Video]
Baltimore Sun: New Year’s fight at Horseshoe Casino [Video]
Baltimore Sun: Man, 39, stabbed to death, others hurt in city shootings
This last article links to a story with the following statement: “Two other men who were wounded when gunfire broke out in the parking garage at Horseshoe Casino Baltimore in the early hours of Sunday morning. Police said a group of men had argued earlier, then encountered each Sunday about 1:20 a.m. on the fourth floor of the parking garage. One man, 21, was shot in his hand; another, 21, in his foot. Both men were hospitalized.”
Many videos of assaults and fights at the Horseshoe can be found on various social media sites.
Here is one example, among many available online:
Published February 2015, the caption under the video says: “Took security staff over 14 minutes to respond. In that time, a young lady was picked up and slammed on the floor by a male and two young ladies had their purses and cell phones stolen. When staff finally arrived police were not contacted, no one was questioned, and everyone was allowed to leave.”
In 2015, swimming Olympian Michael Phelps was arrested for driving while intoxicated after leaving the Horseshoe. His blood alcohol level was 0.14 (the state legal limit is 0.08). At the time, the executive secretary of the Board told the Sun: “We sent a message to their attorneys asking what’s going on,” said Michelle Bailey-Hedgepeth, director of the liquor board. “We have a rule about over-service. Any establishment has to follow our rules.” The casino was never charged with a violation for the Phelps DUI incident.
In the Liquor Board’s online license library, there are no recent inspectors’ reports electronically available at all for the casino. There are, however, 221 scanned pages of police reports and inspectors’ reports from its first year in business, which show a tumultuous security situation at the Horseshoe. One page in the file, entitled Horseshoe Baltimore Casino Ban (page 216 of 221) lists by month the number of people that the casino had banned, for infractions ranging from assault to harassment to “intoxication” and handgun possession. (Side note: isn’t it the licensed establishment’s responsibility to prevent “intoxication”?) In total, between October 2014 and September 2015, the casino apparently banned 745 people from the premises.
Some may wonder whether it’s fair to hold the casino responsible for everything that happens inside such a large establishment. The Liquor Board does regularly hold smaller licensees responsible for fights and violence within their businesses, whether or not they encouraged it or participated in it.
For example, after three masked men entered a Sooner’s Tavern in Curtis Bay and shot a patron within the bar, the Board held the licensee responsible for allowing the crime to take place. A friend of the Sooner’s Tavern owner pleaded with the Board that there was nothing they could have done differently to prevent the shooting; Commissioner Aaron Greenfield responded on May 23, 2019, echoing Commissioner Harvey Jones, that the licensee “is responsible for the security within” the building.
In another hearing, Commissioner Greenfield noted that a Court of Appeals case, Bd. of Liquor License Comm’rs for Balt. City v. Kougl, allowed the Board to use a standard called “strict liability” when deciding whether a licensee is responsible for illegal conduct that occurs within the licensee’s premises. Strict liability means that the Board is not required to make a finding that the licensee participated in or encouraged illegal behavior in order for the licensee to be held responsible for it. In the Kougl example, the Board held a strip club owner responsible for a violation of its rules when a dancer illegally solicited prostitution, even though the owner said that he did not know that this had happened. The Court of Appeals decided that the Board was not required to find that the licensee knew about the dancer’s action in order to hold him responsible for a violation and it upheld the Board’s decision.
How does Kougl apply, then, to these Horseshoe fights and over-service of alcohol? At smaller bars and taverns throughout the city, to the extent that these incidents are brought before the Board for a hearing, the Board has held the smaller licensees responsible for identical violations of the law. Why, then, is the Horseshoe never held accountable for all of the illegal activity that takes place within it?