Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl may close The Keg of Evanston because of repeated charges of underage drinking, she said at a Liquor Control Review Board hearing Friday.
Police cited more than a dozen people for underage consumption of alcohol at The Keg, 810 Grove St., on Jan. 6, the most recent incident in what Evanston Chief of Police Richard Eddington called a long history of problems. The city shut the bar for two days in 2010 when an underage patron was injured in a fight, and for seven days in 2005 when a 19-year-old shot and killed another patron in the bar.
The Keg has a reputation around the North Shore for letting in underage drinkers, Eddington said at the hearing.
“To me, the solution is no license,” he said. “It’s easy. The problem goes met.”
Tisdahl echoed Hughes’ skepticism, saying she finds it “troubling” that after owning The Keg for 19 years, Migon still does not have a solution to underage drinking. She does not want to close an Evanston business, she said, but she needs assurance that Migon will address the problem.
Migon said he would do anything the board suggested, from hiring more security to requiring three IDs.
“I’m sweating right now,” Migon said. “It’s like waking up with a cancer in my brain every morning… This is my livelihood, it’s my job, it’s what I do. I’m taking it very