Four Annapolis restaurants were fined $500 each by the Annapolis Alcoholic Beverage Control Board for serving alcohol to underage customers.

These fines come two months after three Annapolis liquor stores received similar violations. Before that, the Annapolis Police Department announced that those businesses failed an organized mass alcohol compliance check, though the department has not said whether the violations this time came from a similar operation.

Acqua al 2 on Main Street, Blackwall Hitch in Eastport, Pit Boys on Forest Drive, and Nano Asian Dining on Main Street all have 30 days to pay their fines.

First on the Annapolis Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s Wednesday agenda was Acqua, represented by owners Stacy and Ari Gejdenson, who said one of their servers failed to ask for identification.

In response, Stacy Gejdenson said the server received a written warning, with another infraction being grounds for termination. The restaurant also overhauled its training process and now requires all employees serving alcohol to sign a separate document from the employee handbook saying they understand the rules of alcohol sales.

“We never want to be here, but you know, when we are, it’s an opportunity to self-reflect, and so we appreciate the opportunity to do that,” Gejdenson said.

Blackwall Hitch took a stricter approach, terminating the employee deemed to be at fault.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy for this. It’s written in our handbook; anybody caught serving an underage individual is immediately terminated, which is unfortunate,” said James King, founder of Titan Hospitality Group, which runs Blackwall Hitch. “He was a good kid. We felt bad for them, but at the end of the day, we take it seriously, and our policies are our policies.”

The restaurant is also TIPS recertifying every employee. TIPS (Training for Intervention ProcedureS) is an alcohol awareness program. Maryland law requires all license holders or designated employees to be certified by an approved alcohol awareness program.

King said the restaurant’s clientele skews over 55, meaning its staff may not always be as vigilant looking for potentially underage customers.

The employee responsible at Pit Boys was suspended for the week and was also TIPS recertified, according to the restaurant’s owner, David George.

Nano Asian Dining licensee Weifeng Wu said the employee checked the ID but did the math on the date incorrectly. Board member Dick Peterson pointed out that only someone under 21 would be issued a vertical driver’s license, so no math is required. Wu said that the restaurant will no longer serve alcohol to people with that kind of driver’s license, regardless of age. Wu said the employee was retrained after the incident.

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