Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
North Pointe Cinemas, 1060 Mariners Drive, Warsaw, already offers wine to adult moviegoers, but now the theater is looking to offer beer.
Their application for a new beer and wine retailer - restaurant license was before the Kosciusko County Alcohol Tobacco Commission (ATC) on Thursday. Joshua Vazquez, operations manager with North Pointe Cinemas, and Eric Stevenson, owner, appeared before the ATC for the new license.
With North Pointe Cinemas already having alcohol, excise officer April Tackett asked what was their policy for checking IDs.
“We go above and beyond. We check every ID,” Stevenson said. He said there’s only four bar managers. “So we ID everybody as a standard, but then we just follow the agency guidelines ... we error on caution and just ID everybody.”
Tackett asked if that was a written policy, and Stevenson said it wasn’t at the moment. Vazquez said they have a draft of a written policy specifically for alcohol outside of their training policies.
In their training policies, Tackett asked them if they explain to their employees what happens if they do sell alcohol to a minor. Vazquez said they do.
Tackett asked them to explain to the ATC what type of separation they were planning to have, such as a bar room or a completely separate area or what, and how they were going to sell the alcohol to customers.
Vazquez explained currently there is a walk-up counter that is for bar use only. There is signage posted that no one under 21 is allowed in that area.
“It is a walk-up service counter, a few bar stools right up there and a high-top kind of bar area if they were kind of on the back side of that. But there is a clear delineation between things,” Vazquez said.
Stevenson said there’s a large counter that separates the hallway from the alcohol service area.
Tackett informed the two men the application had a floor plan of the bar area only, but a floor plan that included everything under the roof was needed. She later informed them that they could email that amended complete floor plan to her.
She also went over the amendments that needed to be made to their application regarding limited separation, which she explained to them and told them how to make those amendments.
“Originally, when you first got the wine only, that’s limited separation, that’s fine. Since you have had the wine only, they’ve changed the law again to say if you do at least $100,000 a year in food, which you do through your concessions, you don’t have to have any type of separation if you don’t want it,” Tackett stated.
As an agency, however, she said they need to know how to classify North Pointe Cinemas because they need to track their food figures.
“It, no matter how you serve it, can be carried anywhere on your floor plan,” Tackett said.
Stevenson asked if the alcohol could be served over the concession stand instead of a designated bar area because the theater offers food. Tackett said yes, now that the law has changed.
“What constitutes a bar room in the state of Indiana is serving an alcoholic beverage across a counter. So if you serve an alcoholic beverage across a counter, that’s what a bar room is,” she said. “So, now that they’ve changed that rule to, if you do at least $100,000 a year in food, if you wanted to, you could have your concession be - whatever, popcorn, candy, beer - and you can give it all at once, if you wanted to do that because they’ve changed that.”
Anyone that serves alcohol has to have an employee permit.
Vazquez and Stevenson said they’ll stick with limited separation for now, which requires $200,000 in food sales annually. Tackett said a floor plan change and reclassification would be “super easy” to do.
ATC member Dan Woods said when the previous North Pointe Cinemas owners requested the wine permit, there was some concern that someone over 21 would buy the alcohol, give it to someone in the theater who was under 21, and then buy themselves another beer. Woods asked them how they monitor for that.
“That is definitely a concern,” Stevenson said. “The only major policy we have in place is we do kind of a soft two-drink maximum to a customer.”
He said they also do soft periodic checks of the theaters.
Vazquez said if they see two or more people together and only one buys alcohol, they’ll ask to see the others’ IDs. Wristbands also are given to anyone drinking, and the color of the wristband changes daily.
ATC President Alan Alderfer asked if they’ve done a lot of alcohol business, Vazquez said in 2024, wine was less than 1% of their sales, and each other year since it’s been less than 1%. It’s been less than $7,000 in revenue per year, but beer has been the number one requested thing from customers.
There were no remonstrators to North Pointe Cinemas’ application and the county ATC approved the application by a vote of 4-0. The county’s commission is a recommending body to the state commission, which will have final approval on the license application.
In other business, a beer and wine dealer grocery store license renewal for Gurleen Petroleum Inc., doing business as Angel Food Mart, 10010 N. Turkey Creek Road, Syracuse, was continued to the Alcohol Tobacco Commission’s 1 p.m. Nov. 5 meeting in the old courtroom of the county courthouse.
Tackett said Angel Food Mart had a violation, but no one representing the business was present at Thursday’s meeting.
License renewals without violations were approved for:
• Service Liquors Inc., doing business as Service Liquors East, 3720 Lake City Hwy., Warsaw, beer, wine and liquor package store license.
• LM Acquisition Inc., doing business as New Market #771, 306 S. Main St., North Webster, beer and wine dealer grocery store license.
• 201 WM Inc., doing business as West Main Kitchen, 201 W. Main St., Syracuse, beer, wine and liquor - riverfront district license.
• Salvatori’s Warsaw LLC, doing business as Salvatori’s, 3605 Commerce Drive, Warsaw, beer, wine and liquor license.
• H&D Holding LLC, doing business as Milford Party Pack, 314 N. Higbee St., Milford, beer, wine and liquor - package store license.
• The Golf Club of Warsaw LLC, doing business as The Golf Club of Warsaw, 318 Enterprise Drive, Warsaw, beer, wine and liquor - river front district license.
• Jameson Berry Holdings LLC, doing business as Lakelife Bar and Grill, 3687 N. Barbee Road, Warsaw, beer, wine and liquor - restaurant (209) license.
