WAILUKU - A Lahaina bar that served drinks to two men who later died in a drunken-driving crash has had its liquor license suspended for 90 days.
The Liquor Control Adjudication Board on Thursday found the Blue Lagoon Tropical Bar and Grill guilty of three violations of over-service for the 2007 incident, and imposed a 30-day license suspension for each penalty.
In the case, the bar was cited for serving three men after they were intoxicated.
The board also fined the restaurant $2,000 for serving a beer to an underage decoy in a sting operation in 2007.
An attorney for the restaurant entered a plea of "no contest" on all charges at a board hearing in November.
Attorney Jennifer Oana declined to comment on the case. The board had previously informed Blue Lagoon of its verdict and penalty after its November meeting, but it formally voted to adopt the decision Thursday.
It was Blue Lagoon's second violation for both over-service and service-to-a-minor. The bar had previous convictions from incidents in 2006.
According to the board's finding, the three men went to the Front Street bar together Oct. 24, 2007, after already having had a lot to drink earlier that day. Once at the Blue Lagoon, the men each were served "a dozen or more drinks," and were highly intoxicated, according to findings of fact accepted by the board.
The men were slurring their speech, and one fell off his bar stool and had to be carried out of the premises by his friends, according to the report.
After leaving the bar in the early-morning hours, Keone Brown and Angel Villagrana-Zamudio were killed when Brown lost control of his car and crashed while driving toward Honokowai on Honoapiilani Highway. Autopsies found Brown had a blood-alcohol reading of 0.42 percent, and Villagrana-Zamudio had a reading of 0.29 percent.
State law defines intoxication as a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent.
In a second incident earlier in 2007, the bar was found guilty of serving alcohol to a minor.
Police and liquor inspectors staged a sting operation with an under age decoy in the early-morning hours of July 6, 2007.
The 19-year-old decoy ordered a beer, and the bartender served him a bottle of Heineken without asking for his identification, according to the board's findings of fact. The decoy accepted the beer and paid for it with a marked $20 bill. Two police officers witnessed the sale.
* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
