City bar will surrender liquor permit after incidents
Rather than face disciplinary hearing, Jaragua Lounge voluntarily gives up liquor license
WOONSOCKET — Averting a disciplinary hearing after a double stabbing at the bar, the operator of Jaragua Lounge voluntarily surrendered the establishment’s liquor permit to city authorities Wednesday night.
Accompanied by an attorney, proprietor Francisco Mendez relinquished the permit as the hearing before the Board of License Commissioners was about to begin in City Hall.
“They acknowledged there was an incident, but rather than go through a formal hearing, they surrendered their permit,” said Councilman James Cournoyer, a member of the board. “They acknowledged they were facing some difficulties and challenges.”
The city law department had prepared a list of eight different ways Jaragua had allegedly violated the conditions of its liquor license as a result of the stabbings in what would
have been the second disciplinary hearing against the bar since February.
“It was unfortunate to see this establishment back before us again and quite frankly had they not voluntarily surrendered the license it’s quite possible the board or license commissioners would have sought to revoke it anyway,” said Council Vice President Jon Brien. “I think it was a just outcome. There’s a big responsibility that comes with
holding a liquor license and they just didn’t seem up to the task.”
Through his lawyer, Thomas Hardy, Mendez indicated that he might try to sell the business. A new owner could reapply for the license, but there’s no guarantee the board would reissue one for that location, said Cournoyer.
The disciplinary hearing was scheduled after two men were stabbed during an altercation that, judging from a trail of blood observed by police, apparently happened inside the bar on Oct. 26.
According to police reports,
Mendez never reported the crime to police, who discovered it after being dispatched to Landmark Medical Center to interview two men wounded under circumstances doctors assumed involved foul play. There, the two men told investigators where they suffered their injuries, but they refused to provide any other information or file a complaint.
When police returned to the bar in attempts to further investigate the stabbing, officer saw the blood trail and heard voices coming from inside the bar, but no one would answer the door. That was actually the second time that night the police had responded to the bar. About 15 minutes earlier, a few minutes before closing time, police said they broke up a fracas outside the establishment that involved 30-40 people, but they left the area without realizing that anyone had been injured.
Meanwhile, one of the stabbing victims, a 23-year-old man who’d suffered multiple wounds in his abdomen, was transferred to Rhode Island
Hospital. The other victim, 21 years old, suffered two slashing wounds on his forearm. No one has been arrested for the crime.
In February, Jaragua’s license was already suspended for two days and Mendez was fined $250 after the city brought up the bar on unrelated violations.
Those sanctions were the result of charges that the bar was allowing patrons to smoke hookah pipes, despite repeated warnings that it cease doing so after the practice was initially discovered on Nov. 28, 2018. The police found out about it the second time, on Dec. 23, 2018, after the smoke from the Middle Eastern water pipes set off alarms in the building, drawing a public safety response.
Six days later, when police returned with firefighters for a spot check a third time, they again observed “active hookah devices” in use, according to the official record of the disciplinary hearing.