In high school, Megan Ballard sometimes went to popular night spot Cafe Hookah, 726 Clark St. While smoking with her friends, she’d spot fellow students drinking underage.
“I have never had my ID checked there,” said Ballard, a Communication freshman who went to Evanston Township High School. “I’ve seen kids from my high school there that I knew to be underage, and they’d have cases of beer under the table while smoking hookah.”
But Ballard also said the restaurant recently has been more strict when it comes to checking IDs.
Cafe Hookah is among several restaurants, such as Cozy Noodles & Rice, 1018 Davis. St., and Joy Yee’s Noodle Kitchen, 521 Davis St., that allow customers to bring in their own alcohol.
All three restaurants have a high volume of customers who drink, yet Cafe Hookah is more frequently patrolled by the Evanston Police Department, according to owners.
“Our market is 18- to 25-year-old kids,” said Vartan Seferian, the owner of Cafe Hookah. “At the beginning, bringing alcohol was very big. Now only 10 percent (of customers) bring in alcohol.”
The Evanston City Council recently addressed cases of underage smoking and drinking at Cafe Hookah at its meetings.
At a Jan. 10 Administration and Public Works committee meeting, Ald. Ann Rainey (8th) asked Evanston health inspectors and police officers to regulate people who bring alcohol into the restaurant more carefully.
“People bringing alcohol into (Cafe Hookah) is a problem,” Rainey said. She said she also was concerned about underage smoking at the restaurant.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) also referred to a bring-your-own-beer restaurant near Clark Street and Sherman Avenue, which was having problems regulating underage drinking.
According to Evanston city code, a restaurant without a liquor license can allow customers to bring in alcohol. But underage drinking can be a liability for the restaurant.
Since its 2002 opening, Cafe Hookah has been the location of four citations for use of fake IDs and consumption of alcohol by minors, violations of city code.
Cafe Hookah employees said they consistently check for identification before they let people smoke or drink.
“We don’t let people bring in liquor if they’re under 21,” Seferian said. “If we find customers drinking inside and they’re underage, we take their liquor and kick them out.”
The restaurant usually collects a $2 cover charge on weekends. In mid-2003, Seferian said he fired bouncers who were knowingly letting in students with fake IDs.
“People, especially those high school kids, try to come in and smoke,” Seferian said. “We’ve kicked a lot of people out and refused a lot of business. We really don’t need the extra $10 or $20 from an underage kid. We already do a lot of business.”
Seferian said Evanston police come to patrol at his restaurant at least four times a week.
Deputy Chief Joe Bellino of EPD said officers conduct both overt and covert liquor and tobacco checks at Evanston restaurants.
“We’ve found businesses on most occasions to be in compliance,” he said.
Cozy Noodles & Rice and Joy Yee’s Noodle Kitchen don’t have liquor licenses and have a number of customers who bring in their own alcohol. Cozy Noodles only permits wine and beer while Joy Yee’s allows any liquor. Neither has been cited for violating the city’s underage drinking ordinance, according to city records.
“Eighty percent of customers bring alcohol,” said Chutima Thondee, who has been the manager of Cozy Noodles since the restaurant opened in 2002. “Most of those people bring beer and are 30 or older. If students come in (with alcohol), for sure, most of the time we check their IDs.”
Joy Yee’s employee Andreas Makabedua estimated that one-third of customers, most of whom are older, bring in their own alcohol.
“We check everyone’s IDs. We don’t want to get in trouble,” he said.
Both employees said they’ve never seen Evanston police attempt to prevent underage drinking in their restaurants. Makabedua said the police came in when Joy Yee’s first opened to remind the manager to check patrons’ IDs.
Since then, he said officers haven’t returned to patrol or to show employees how to check for fake IDs. Thondee, too, said she wouldn’t know a fake ID if she saw one.
Although Seferian said there is a greater police presence at Cafe Hookah, police officials said they are not targeting it over other businesses.
“I don’t know that the hookah bar stands out greater than any other establishment,” Bellino said. “We catch calls from a lot of different establishments. Over the course of time, I don’t know that any one is talked about more than the other.”
But Seferian said he doesn’t mind the patrols — he said he’s even asked police how to check for fake IDs.
“I don’t think that we’re being pointed out,” he said. “No, not at all. (The police) can come in 20 times a day if they’d like.”
Students such as Ballard said Cafe Hookah’s gradually heightened security has changed the makeup of the clientele. Ballard said she goes to Cafe Hookah less frequently than she did in high school because the new security measures mean there are more older customers at the restaurant — a crowd that produces an atmosphere she doesn’t like as much.
“Now, I think less than one-fourth of the customers are underage,” Ballard said, “because the employees have ‘cracked down,’ but there were more at the beginning.”
Reach Deborah Meron at [email protected].
The Daily’s Daniella Cheslow contributed to this report.
