On Monday night, the State Liquor Authority asked the owner of Gin Palace to turn off the bar's special gin and tonic tap, because it's illegal to serve cocktails this way. The SLA has not commented on the specifics of the shutdown yet, but the bar's owner Ravi DeRossi believes his team was busted because of an obscure Prohibition-era law that prohibits pouring booze from one bottle into another bottle, then serving it.
Apparently, the law was tweaked in 1989 to allow people to serve margaritas from machines. Gin Palace's beverage director Frank Cisneros tells Diner's Journal: "The law does not stipulate that the motion is provided by any sort of blade or mechanical means..nor does it qualify what a ‘machine’ even is." Cisneros and DeRossi hope to convince the SLA that their set-up should be allowed under this part of the law. Until then, the bar is open and serving everything but the draft cocktails.
· Gin Palace Says State Turned Off the Tap on Its Cocktails [DJ]
· All Coverage of Gin Palace [~ENY~]
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