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The Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission voted Tuesday to uphold recommendations of the Marion County Alcoholic Beverage Board regarding two bars on South Meridian Street.
Taps & Dolls, 247 S. Meridian St., will lose its liquor license, pending any appeals to the state commission’s unanimous 4-0 vote to revoke.
Tiki Bob’s Cantina, 231 S. Meridian St., was granted a one-year liquor license renewal.
Both bars were spotlighted during a March 7 Marion County Alcoholic Beverage Board hearing that detailed hundreds of police runs to the locations to respond to fights and other incidents.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commissioner Marjorie Maginn described a 15-page summary of violations at Taps & Dolls as “one of the longest” she’s seen.
Maginn criticized Taps & Dolls owner Ryan Greb for apparent falsification of records, something he admitted to during the March 7 Marion County hearing.
“It’s very difficult to follow the paper trail,” Maginn said. “He changed his answers several times under oath.”
IBJ’s attempt to reach Greb was unsuccessful.
Greb is part of an ownership group that recently purchased John’s Famous Stew, 1146 Kentucky Ave., a restaurant and bar that originally opened in 1911 and closed in 2020.
In conjunction with the one-year liquor license renewal for Tiki Bob’s, Maginn said she’s hopeful co-owners Jason Jenkins and Jason Stellema will follow through on commitments to make the bar a safer place in the downtown entertainment district.
Jenkins and Stellema told the Marion County board that Tiki Bob’s will update its ID-checking protocol with new technology, train bartenders and staff to not serve intoxicated patrons, stop the smoking of illegal substances inside the building and make changes to an outside VIP line that has been a point of contention among patrons.
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I can’t believe Taps has been open as long as it has… even 10 years ago it was always the place you could buy drugs at downtown.
Sad day, but Taps hasn’t been in its prime since about 2015. I’m sure Mike and Ryan will find a way to make their next venture successful, and I wish them all the best.
I hightly doubt they will ever have another business. Seems like they made a lot of shady known mistakes.
And while the State and Marion County liquor boards are at, meme these owners pay the costs of all the police runs. Because of this BS at these bars, the police have to play baby sitter there. I want a discount on my property taxes because I don’t pay property tax to have the police play baby sitter. Why should the rest of law abiding Indianapolis residents see their property taxes thrown down the drain because of unruly punk lawless patrons? It just causes the Mayor and the City-County Council to add more and more tax dollars to fund more police to baby sit. Make the bar owners pay the freight of every police run to these joints. And those so-called federal grants the City requests for more policing, those so-called grants are really tax dollars. Enough already!!!!!!! Time to move out of Marion County.
Ooops gang, had a typo in that 1st sentence. meme should be the word “make”.
Posting via phone, eh?