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April 16, 2008 05:59 pm
Salem cops follow Facebook to boozing youths
By Tom Dalton
CNHI News Service
SALEM, Mass. — Salem's Bangkok Paradise had become so popular with under-21 drinkers that it was getting mentioned Facebook and MySpace, police said.
Now the downtown restaurant will lose its liquor license for three days following one of the biggest underage drinking busts in city history.
Police found 13 underage drinkers, mostly college students, there one night during the January winter break.
"We looked it up (on Facebook), and they said they were 'going to Bangkok tonight,'" Detective William Jennings said.
A hearing on the incident was held Monday night before the Licensing Board.
Phone calls from parents and inquiries from city officials, along with the Internet social networking site mentions, prompted police to stage a sting at the Thai restaurant on Jan. 17.
When police entered, they found the group sitting at a large table with beers and mixed drinks and no food. The students admitted they were underage and said they had not been asked for IDs, Jennings said. The waiter also admitted not asking the customers for identification, police said.
The Licensing Board suspended the restaurant's liquor license for April 28 to 30 and ordered every employee to take an alcohol server's training course. Bangkok Paradise was told that, until the training is done, every customer ordering liquor, regardless of age, must be asked for identification.
Bangkok Paradise did not dispute the charges, but blamed the violations on a new employee who did not know the law.
After the bust, the underage drinkers were loaded into a van and taken to the police station. The large group was not charged, police said, but was shown a holding cell, warned about the dangers and penalties of underage drinking, and turned over to their parents.
"I don't think we've ever taken that many kids out of a bar like that before," Jennings said
Tom Dalton writes for The Salem (Mass.) News.
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