Flanagan's strives to abide by the law

I was, at best, agitated to see that Flanagan's had made the paper last week, detailing alcohol violations, the last of which came nine months ago. If only all of our efforts for the benefit of the community got so much attention.

The wording of that article was such that readers might be left to make untrue assumptions, possibly that the staff at Flanagan's is negligent, or unconcerned with abiding by the law. I'd like to make it clear that is not the case at all.

As the bar manager, I can honestly say that not one person employed by Flanagan's condones the sale of alcohol to minors. We make every effort to prevent it from happening in our bar. Since the violations occurred we have enforced stricter policies and hired additional door staff to check identification. Bartenders are even rewarded monetarily for catching and keeping fake IDs.

I can also say, that I personally am not, nor was I ever lax on our policy of carding everyone who looks under 40. Anyone who has been served by me can attest to that. Unfortunately, I have no recollection of the minor I sold a beer to last November. (For the record, I was not the bar manager at the time.) I wasn't ticketed until three days after the incident, and after a weekend of bartending, it's tough to recall one specific sale. At least two other bartenders at other downtown bars who were also cited as a result of the Alcohol Enforcement Task Force "sting" that night were ticketed within hours. I'm not sure why I wasn't, but it sure does make it difficult to defend myself.

In reference to the other two minor violations, in one instance the underage buyer had already been kicked out of the bar after attempting to buy a beer, and sneaked back in to an unopened section of the bar when the band was loading in. In the third offense, the minor managed to get past the door staff and the offending bartender assumed he had already shown his ID at the door.

On a different note, I would like to call some very well-earned and much-needed attention to some of the good deeds that Flanagan's has committed. In our first year of operation, we held three major benefits: the Tsunami Relief Concert, the benefit for Hurricane Katrina relief fund, and one very special benefit for a local young woman with breast cancer, in total raising over $25,000.

Flanagan's also holds and constantly promotes an ongoing food drive through our concerts, in which we have donated over a ton (literally) of food to North Valley Food Bank so far.

We also host a number of fund-raisers for area organizations, including the Flathead Valley Snowmobile Association's "Pray for Snow" fund-raiser, and Glacier Country Avalanche Center's annual "Snowball", both two years running.

We'd love to see a page worth of attention given to any one of those newsworthy happenings. Maybe next time…

Heather Mah is the general manager at Flanagan's Central Station in Whitefish.