concernedABQ's Blog

I am writing you this email in hopes that maybe you can actually shed light on a horribly unethical and possibly very illegal. There are very strict liquor laws in this state...some bar owners choose to follow the laws, some bar owners bend the laws and some bar owners flat out beak the laws.  In the situation of the law breaking bar owners there is an agency in state government that is supposed to monitor them.  The Alcohol and Gaming Division has a department in it known as SID, Special Investigations Department, for the most part the group of agents are honest and above board and work very hard to watch the bar owners and staff.  I personally appreciate them very much...   There is an exception to this though.  There is a bar in downtown Albuquerque called Club 7.  The owner of this bar is about as non-law abiding as they come.  His antics are very well known downtown...This bar stays open until 4am, most of the time serving liquor the entire time.  They have under-age nights where there will be children as young as 16 in the bar, with no physical structure separating the 21+ with alcohol from the underage, as the law states there should be.  They are known to have ecstasy parties in this bar, even so much as having people over dose.  The past 3 stabbings that have occurred downtown have been done by underage people who were in this bar drinking. The list of citations go on and on and on.   The issue with all of the above is that the agents from SID have done there best to shut this club down.  They have continuously cited the owner and bar over and over again.  The problem isn't the agents...the problem is Gary Tomada, Director of the Alcohol and Gaming Division.  He has blocked all of the citations from moving forward to be prosecuted.  It's known that every time the owner of the bar gets a citation he laughs at the agents and says 'you know it will disappear'.  No one in the downtown area, and pretty much anyone who is familiar with Club 7 could figure out how this bar is still open with all of the known and documented illegal activity.  Well, the answer came a few weeks ago when Alex, the owner, got married, Gary Tomada was a guest at his wedding.  Besides being completely inappropriate for the director of AGD to be at the wedding of a person who breaks the laws so blatantly, it's completely unethical and the possible illegal part is that Alex brags about having Gary Tomada 'in his pocket' and actually gave me advice recently that if I pad Gary's pockets I will be sitting pretty just like him.   I as well as most bar owners struggle to follow the letter of the law, it's constantly changing and personal responsibility is null and void in this state, the bar staff and owners are held responsible for our patrons decisions when it comes to drinking.  Fine, the laws are the laws but having blatant disregard for them and getting away with it because you are willing to pay off the people who are supposed to uphold the law is ridiculous.  The police are aware of the situation, SID agents are aware, and so are the local politicians.  Something has to be done...this is not a safe situation for the rest of the downtown bar owners/patrons.   Someone suggested I write to you since you seem to be one of the few people in this state not in anyone's pocket and you certainly aren't afraid of the Mafia administration that reigns over this state.   Thank you for your time and I do hope you will actually investigate this for what it is.