The PA Gaming Control Board fined Chickie’s & Pete’s restaurant at Parx Casino Bensalem $20,000.00 for serving multiple drinks to intoxicated patrons.
The costly fine was for serving six visibly intoxicated guests on three separate occasions. One guest was served 14 drinks, six beers, and eight shots, over three hours. The intoxicated patrons were identified by a casino employee as well as a Chickie’s & Pete’s employee, necessitating casino security officials to review hours of surveillance video to count up the total intake of beverages.
This is the first time Chickie’s & Pete’s has been fined for alcohol violations, although they have been issued warnings in 2017 and 2018 for overserving alcohol to gamblers, including one guest who was served 28 drinks in just over nearly eight hours.
There were four previous incidents between 2015 and 2017 involving the restaurant’s alcohol service that were “discussed” with Parx during compliance conferences, but no action was taken.
Chickie’s & Pete’s vowed to step up employee training under the state’s Responsible Alcohol Management Program. The restaurant also “will provide all patrons who sit at the bar with a glass of water and a menu which will encourage patrons to order food and provide them with a non-alcoholic beverage,”.
“We take our responsibility as the licensee very seriously,” said Lawrence S. Rosenwald, a lawyer for Chickie’s & Pete’s. He said the company has already begun to implement the promises it made to the gaming board, and “we will continue to monitor all aspects of our operation, so that if we can identify other ways to reduce the possibility of events like this from happening in the future, we will take those actions and take them promptly.”