Members of the San Diego Police Department’s vice squad met with the Tavern Guild Roundtable San Diego on Dec. 15 to discuss their increased presence at local bars within the GLBT community and how to work more closely together. The Tavern Guild is a coalition of employees from GLBT bars, clubs, restaurants and coffee shops. Bourbon Street bartender “Big Mike” Phillips and assistant manager Leo Moore founded the organization earlier this year in order to create a stronger voice for bar, restaurant and club owners within the community.

Lawrence McKinney, a lieutenant who supervises the SDPD’s vice squad unit, explained how the vice unit is structured and other details to about 25 people who attended the meeting.

Vice officer Larry Darwin mentioned a grant the city received that involves five agencies: the SDPD, San Diego Fire Department, San Diego City Attorney’s Office, San Diego State Police and UCSD Police. He said one of the components of this grant involves a program called Operation Safe Clubs, which the vice squad has been conducting for three years.

“Operation Safe Clubs is intended as a working relationship. We send out teams to look at complaints concerning businesses that are overcrowded or might have exit or storage problems at their businesses,” Darwin said. “…I’m not joking – we’ve walked into places where a person who was intoxicated could not fall down drunk because there was no room for him to fall down. We couldn’t walk through these places. That was a safety issue.”

Darwin said the vice squad works with the fire department in order to make a decision on whether or not to evacuate or “dump” a bar or club if they are over capacity or in violation of anything else.

“Most of the places we go to we don’t do this…. Sometimes we visit and educate places, and for some reason they still have a bad problem with overcrowding,” Darwin said.

Jerry Stratton, a vice and liaison detective with the Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC), conducts a training program called Licensee Education on Alcohol and Drugs (LEAD), which specifically addresses potential problem areas and issues for establishments related to ABC license requirements and compliance.

“If there’s a problem in your establishment, or if you’re getting increased scrutiny because of lack of compliance with the rules and regulations, a lot of times it’s just a misunderstanding of what those rules mean,” Stratton said. “We obviously want to make your business friendly to the community so you prosper, and also it’s less of a headache for us. I will help you through the process, providing training, [and] show you where the downfalls are.”

LEAD is a prevention and education program with a mission to provide high quality, effective and educationally sound training on alcohol responsibility and the law to retail licensees, license applicants and employees. This free training is conducted by ABC investigators, and the vice squad assists by providing information related to entertainment permits, security concerns and other vice-related issues.

LEAD began in 1991 with a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety. Since February 1995, the ABC has funded the program and has trained over 100,000 people.

“One of the goals of the training is to answer the specific questions that relate to their individual establishment, review policies and problem-solve past situations,” Stratton said. “The training can benefit all the employees of ABC-licensed establishments by providing them information on personal liability and their responsibilities to the ABC establishments they work for.”

Stratton said LEAD training lasts between three and five hours, and is intended to provide a framework for productive and profitable business practices.

The Tavern Guild is trying to coordinate with all the bars and clubs to do one large LEAD training session within the next month, Phillips said.

Gaps in communication between bar management and fire and police officials have been a main concern for many bar and club owners in the Tavern Guild, Phillips said.

“Our goal is to work with the fire department, the police department and vice and ABC … the whole goal of the Tavern Guild is to try to build a relationship that we all understand what we’re supposed to do, how we’re supposed to do it, and make sure it’s done properly,” Phillips said.

So far Phillips said he has received nothing but cooperation from the fire and police departments related to working with the Tavern Guild.

“We’ve had every person in charge of every group there represented at the Tavern Guild and I think that says a lot [about] the city of San Diego trying to make an effort to work with us and vice versa on behalf of our bars,” he said.

Fire Marshal Sam Oates and staff were originally scheduled to speak, but could not attend the meeting. Moore said the Tavern Guild is coordinating with the fire department so that Oates and staff can attend the next Tavern Guild meeting on either Jan. 16 or Jan. 23.