SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Yellowknife pub has been ordered to close its doors for four days and pay a $5,000 fine after an anonymous tip led the RCMP to an employee working while drunk last October.

Sam's Monkey Tree was fined $5,000 and ordered to shut down for four days beginning Feb. 23 after the RCMP caught the pub's doorman working while intoxicated last October. - Terrence McEachern/NNSL photo

The Liquor Licensing Board of the NWT found Sam's Monkey Tree guilty of two offences under the NWT Liquor Act - for allowing an intoxicated person to remain on the premises and for having an employee drunk on the job. Both offences related to the pub's doorman.

The suspension starts Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 10 a.m. and ends Monday, Feb. 28, at 10 a.m.

Brian Asmundson, a lawyer for the GNWT, told the board that at 1:18 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2010, the Yellowknife RCMP responded to an anonymous tip that a doorman at Sam's Monkey Tree was intoxicated.

The officers entered the pub, located at 483 Range Lake Road, and spoke to the doorman for a few minutes. One of them noticed he had slurred speech, involuntary eye closure, glossy eyes and he was leaning against the wall to keep his balance. He also had a strong smell of alcohol coming from his breath, Asmundson said.

The officer then informed Steve Dinham, the owner-manager of Sam's Monkey Tree, that the employee was drunk. Dinham removed the doorman from active duty immediately. However, Asmundson said it was strange the owner did not argue with the officer and defend his employee at the time. After his submissions, Asmundson asked the board to impose both fines and a suspension for the violations.

Dinham responded it is his practice to comply with orders from enforcement officers, and since the incident, the doorman has been assigned to work another position. At the hearing Dinham strongly disputed the officer's claim the doorman was intoxicated. He said the officer only spent a few minutes "in passing" talking to the doorman, and said the RCMP had to return on Monday to ask staff the name of the doorman.

He further argued there was no "concrete evidence" in the form of a breathalyzer test to prove the employee was intoxicated, and no one testified to witnessing him drink alcohol that night. Dinham said he had numerous interactions with the doorman and didn't notice any signs of intoxication.

The five-member board - comprising Albert Monchuck of Fort Smith, Wayne Smith of Inuvik, Sherry Hodgson of Norman Wells, Stanley Jones of Hay River and Don Kindt, chair, of Yellowknife - accepted the RCMP officer's observations that the employee was intoxicated. Further, the board figured because it was near the end of the doorman's shift, he must have been drinking at work in order to be as intoxicated as he was at that time of night.

After being found guilty of both offences, Dinham requested a fine only and no suspension, but the board imposed both.

For the first offence of allowing an intoxicated person - the doorman - to remain on the premises, the board fined Sam's Monkey Tree $2,000 and one-day closure.

For having an employee drinking alcohol while working, the board ordered the pub closed for three more days and pay an additional fine of $3,000.

The fine must also be paid by Feb. 28. In addition to the fine and suspension, the board ordered staff members at Sam's Monkey Tree to undergo server training. After the hearing held at the Yellowknife Inn on Tuesday, Dinham and Asmundson both declined to comment.

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