By Gail Peckler-Dziki~CORRESPONDENT
It will be one year before the owner of Sukdev Petroleum Inc., also known as Paddock Lake Shell, can apply for a license to sell beer.
The Paddock Lake Village Board voted unanimously for the revocation at a hearing held on Feb. 11.
Even then, the Paddock Lake Village Board does not have to grant that license, according to outgoing village president Marlene Goodson.
“Having a license to sell alcohol is a privilege, not a right,” she said.
In order to sell alcohol, a business must carry a license and every person who will sell alcohol must have a license.
In order to be granted a license, individuals must pass a background check. And all are required to ask for an ID from anyone wishing to buy alcohol to make sure that person is not underage.
Seven tickets in less than nine months have caused Sukdev Petroleum doing business as Paddock Lake Shell to loose that privilege. In less than one year, five citations were written for selling alcohol to minors, three in one weekend.
Attorney John Cavialle, representing the village, questioned two Kenosha County deputies that had written tickets for selling alcohol to underage persons and selling with expired licenses.
Deputies Tim Hackbarth and Matthew Savage were assigned underage alcohol patrol during Central High School’s homecoming weekend on Oct. 6 and 7, 2012.
The school is located a half block from Paddock Lake Shell. On the first night, the underage decoy went into the gas station and was able to purchase alcohol. When the decoy was successful, Hackbarth went into the gas station and wrote a ticket to the clerk and explained that the low forbids selling alcohol to minors.
That clerk was Narinder Singh and there was a sign on the inside wall that stated alcohol is not to be sold to minors.
The crew returned the next night, Oct. 7, and again sent a decoy into the Paddock Lake Shell. “We wanted to see if they would be compliant,” Hackbarth explained.
A decoy went in and successfully bought beer, even showing his ID that clearly stated that he would not be 21 until 2015. Hackbarth said they decided to send in another decoy later. He was also able to buy beer and all from the same clerk who sold beer to the decoy the previous evening.
Those three convictions, along with one received in April when another employee sold alcohol to an underage individual, two more for selling alcohol without a valid license and one more selling to an underage person, convinced the Paddock Lake Village Board to revoke the liquor license for that establishment for one year.
After the hearing, Paddock Lake trustee Pat Warner agreed with trustee Chris Bucko’s statement that the board needs to act to protect the youth in the village. “But it goes further than that. We need to protect families, the families of the kids who might drink and families that will be driving on the same road.”
Hackbarth stated earlier in the hearing that most traffic accidents with serious injury or death are alcohol-related.
The village attorney Jeff Davison explained that this revocation stays with the location. “If the business is sold, the revocation stays until next February.”
Parminder Singh, agent for Sukdev Petroleum, and Tarlochan Singh represented the business at the hearing. Tarlochan did receive two tickets in November, one for selling to a minor and the other for selling without a valid license.
The morning after the hearing for revocation, Paddock Lake Shell is required to remove all beer signs and have distributors pick up the inventory left in the establishment. Village administrator Tim Popanda will stop in that day to make sure the changes are comple