Liquor License

After a quiet 12 months, Lou Turks, the notorious go-go bar in Essington, could be back in business and ready for action as soon as July 1. The rowdy strip joint's liquor license had been suspended for year after the Liquor Control Board cited it for "lewd, immoral or improper entertainment. " Lt. John McGeehan, Liquor Control Enforcement officer, said that the suspension expired July 1. Attempts to reach owner Lou Saddic were unsuccessful. However, recent activity at the nightspot suggested that a reopening was planned soon.

As part of their municipal corruption investigation in Norristown, federal officials are scrutinizing Mayor Ted LeBlanc's sale of a bar four years ago and a businessman who helped finance the deal. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia has subpoenaed financial records from the 2001 sale of the liquor license for Walter's Tavern at 419 W. Marshall St. and the 2003 sale of its building. In recent months, federal prosecutors also have subpoenaed James Connelly, the owner of an Exton-based vending-machine company that lent money to the person who bought the building from LeBlanc.

If it had just been the drug sales in his bar, in which his own workers face charges, Dennis Vaughn might have had a better chance of avoiding a suspension of his liquor license. But when the police charged that a bartender, a waitress and a regular customer were stashing cocaine and methamphetamine in the walk-in refrigerator of the Pennsauken Beef & Beer, that just about finished things off. After a three-month investigation and a Nov. 10 police raid on the bar at the Pennsauken Mart, the Township Committee voted last week to suspend the liquor license at the Beef & Beer for 12 months.

Washington Township Councilman Daniel Mangini put it this way: "There are a lot of dollars at stake in this one. " A million dollars, according to testimony offered Wednesday by Thomas Hedenberg, a builder and restaurant owner who was conditionally granted and then denied a liquor-license renewal by the Township Council. Hedenberg appealed that denial to the state's Alcohol Beverage Commission (ABC) last month and an administrative law judge heard six hours of testimony Wednesday from Hedenberg and council members.

The Voorhees Township Committee last night renewed the liquor license for the Coliseum - the bar where Flyers star goalie Pelle Lindbergh drank before his fatal car crash - despite recent charges by the state that the bar employed a person with a criminal record and failed to disclose the true ownership of the bar. Township solicitor Frank Thatcher said the committee lacked "sufficient, independent evidence" not to renew the license even though...

A good bottle of wine can cost $20. Fine champagne will run $70. Trendy imported beers such as Corona or Dock Street go for $5 a six-pack. In Voorhees Township, the price for the privilege to hawk those wares is $310,000 - but there are no takers. In three bidding periods, the most recent of which expired Monday at the Township Committee meeting, the township did not receive any complete bids for the Class D liquor license. Now, township officials say they will not re-bid the license until next year at the earliest.

A liquor license likely will be the final piece that completes the largest shopping center in Washington Township. On April 26, the township will open bids for two liquor licenses. One of the licenses likely will be bought by the Brunswick Corp. of Chicago for its proposed 40-lane bowling center, which will be built next to the Cross Keys Commons shopping center in the eastern part of the township. The other license probably will be bought by a local liquor store. The bowling center is the second major recreational tenant for the shopping center, already under construction on the Black Horse Pike.

John Stavros, president of Evesham's venerable Olga's Diner, is one of many township business owners who have complained about the way township officials have dealt with distributing the available liquor licenses. Now, Stavros has moved past the complaining stage. Stavros, whose diner has been a staple at the Marlton Circle for 30 years, has told township officials he will no longer sponsor local groups, such as wrestling clubs, schools and churches. "We deeply regret that we must decline these requests (for sponsorships or baked goods)

The Township Council last night decided to postpone a vote on whether to approve the transfer of a retail liquor license from the owners of the Medford Village Resort & Country Club to the club's general manager. The council is awaiting the results of a background check by the FBI on Larry Wizeman, general manager of the club, said Mayor Andrew P. Korab. Officials said they expected to have the report in time to possibly make a decision on the transfer at the council's March 20 meeting.

Peter Vitale envisions a place in Lower Merion where local beer connoisseurs and novices alike can choose among craft, import, and other specialty brews when they want to take a break from the pricey beer cases or the easy Bud Light purchase. "You can get a huge selection of wines from California to France, and vodkas now come in various flavors, such as cherry or even a cake flavor," Vitale said. "The palate today seems to be leaning toward variety, so why not have a place that does that for beers?"

Rob LaScala, whose flagship restaurant is the casual, family-friendly LaScala's at Seventh and Chestnut Streets, is launching side-by-side Italian concepts a few blocks away. Earlier this year, he bought the adjoining Old City restau-clubs Paradigm and Dolce. The Paradigm side has opened as Rocchino's (239 Chestnut St., 215-238-6900), a smart-looking spot, named after his mother's side of the family, with brick walls, a curved bar with moderately priced beers and wines, booths and table seating, and a mammoth, colorfully tiled coal-fired oven that fires up pizzas, pastas, and the like; it's billed as a rustic small-plater, but portions, especially pastas, are decent.

Executives who recently won the right to sell alcohol at Moorestown Mall after a years-long battle are jubilant, and the reason has everything to do with dollars and cents in a world of mall retailing where restaurants are now key to making money. The Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, a Center City-based owner of mid-Atlantic shopping malls, including Cherry Hill, Plymouth Meeting, and Willow Grove Park, lobbied heavily for last week's referendum eliminating Moorestown's century-old ban on alcohol sales.

Two executives of the Downtowners Fancy Brigade were among those arrested when the police vice squad raided the Mummers group's South Philadelphia clubhouse in a prostitution sweep Tuesday night. Altogether police arrested 10 women and one man on prostitution charges and two other men on liquor violation charges. Arrested on the liquor charges were John Murray, 56, of Deptford, N.J., the club's financial secretary; and Alfred Sanborn, 44, of South Philadelphia, its steward, police said.

JIM'S STEAKS has yet to disclose to the state Liquor Control Board that co-owner William Proetto died this summer, and it never told the state that Proetto was arrested for DUI and drug possession in Narberth in 2007, said PLCB spokeswoman Stacey Witalec. She described the lack of disclosure as a "falsification. " "The documents were not filled out accurately," she said. The state agency isn't in a position to pull Jim's license, but when its application is in front of the board in 2012, it can base the renewal "on the thorough review of the license and the individuals listed on the license," Witalec said.

A Cherry Hill liquor license that sold for $1.6 million four years ago went for less than a third of that Monday. The developers of the Garden State Park shopping center were the only bidders and paid $500,000 for the license at a bankruptcy auction. The buyers are expected to provide the license for another upscale restaurant/bar at the Garden State Park complex. The buyers' representative, Richard Fernicola, of M&M Realty Partners, declined to disclose the plans for the license.

A Cherry Hill liquor license that sold for $1.6 million four years ago went for less than a third of that Monday. The developers of the Garden State Park shopping center were the only bidders and paid $500,000 for the license at a bankruptcy auction. The buyers are expected to provide the license for another upscale restaurant/bar at the Garden State Park complex. The buyers' representative, Richard Fernicola, of M&M Realty Partners, declined to disclose the plans for the license.

Are liquor license prices, like real estate prices or the value of gold, a measure of the economy's strength? In Cherry Hill next week, a rare auction of a local liquor license may provide an answer. On Monday, a liquor consumption license that sold for $1.6 million four years ago will be auctioned off as part of the bankruptcy proceedings for a failed bar and restaurant. The auction may offer a glimpse into the hearts and wallets of local developers and speculators: Do they expect a rebounding economy to spur the opening of upscale bars and restaurants, or do they worry that hard times will drive people to drink, but not in pricey joints?

George Reilly, an English blues guitarist and erstwhile bartender at Parc, is behind the days-old Southern-style blues and juke joint The Twisted Tail (509 S. Second St., 215-558-2471). It has transformed the former Kildare's near South Street, lightening up the seating and bar on the first floor. On the second floor, Reilly has installed a live-music venue, wallpapered in sheet music and concert posters, with another full bar and a stage for acts five nights a week. Loaner instruments hang on the wall, in case you feel like jamming.

The troubled Felton Supper Club will stay closed for a year after action by the city and the District Attorney's Office. The Feltonville nightclub, at 4800 Rising Sun Ave., scene of a shooting last month that left nine people injured, has been shuttered since May 24, when the city revoked its occupancy permit and other licenses. On Thursday, prosecutors filed a public nuisance action against the bar, seeking to keep it padlocked for a year. Club owner Maria Lopez did not fight the order, the city said.