Restaurants, bars and liquor stores may be charged with a variety of license violations, including but not limited to, operating after hours, selling alcohol to minors, or illegal actions of staff or security. Penalties range from fines to a suspension, to revocation of a liquor license.

What has become commonplace throughout the Chicagoland area is that municipal licensing authorities and police have taken a targeted approach against bars and businesses for that municipalities failure to control crime in the surrounding area. Many businesses, depending on the municipality, fall victim to some version of a summary suspension ordinance. These ordinances allow the local liquor commissioner to summarily close a business for a prescribed period of time while allowing the business an opportunity for an administrative hearing to lift the summary closure.

A municipality may also move to suspend or permanently revoke a business’s liquor license if that business has been cited for numerous license infractions or other violations specific to those businesses. A hearing is required before a liquor license may be suspended or revoked; at which time the municipality must prove its case against the business by presenting witness testimony or documentary evidence. It is the rule in administrative courtrooms that hearsay evidence is generally permissible, and that certain evidence that would otherwise be inadmissible in circuit court (i.e., police reports) is routinely admitted into evidence and considered by the hearing officer.

It is therefore important to put on the best and most comprehensive defense possible at the earliest possible juncture for any disciplinary matter involving a liquor license in order to create a record. In the event that a decision rendered by a local liquor commissioner must be appealed to the Illinois Liquor Control Commission (the “ILCC”) or Circuit Court, then only the record that was created at the initial hearing can be considered. In other words, any evidence, testimony, or arguments not presented or made at the initial hearing in front of the local liquor commissioner are waived if the case is appealed. Examples of a best defense include, but is not limited to, presenting rebuttal witnesses testimony and evidence establishing that the business acted and operated reasonably and that the violation at issue did not have a nexus to the operation of the business, or was otherwise outside the control of the business, and effectively cross examining the testimony and evidence elicited and entered by the municipality.