State police cite 8 restaurants for covid violations in Allegheny, Westmoreland counties

Pennsylvania State Police cited eight restaurants in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties for allegedly violating covid-19 restrictions last month, and the Allegheny County Health Department has shut down several establishments in the first two weeks of the year.

The number of violations issued by state police was down across the two counties in December, likely because restaurants and bars were ordered to stop indoor operations for three weeks in an effort to stem a surge in cases that came in the weeks after Thanksgiving.

In Westmoreland County, Hugo’s and Rialto in Greensburg, Café Supreme in Irwin, the Oklahoma Inn in Apollo, and Ligonier Tavern and Table were all cited for violations ranging from not requiring face masks to serving customers alcohol at the bar or without a meal purchase.

In Allegheny County, the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club in Pittsburgh, Tugboats in East Pittsburgh and Cantley’s in Carnegie were cited for similar violations, including serving alcohol without a meal purchase and not enforcing mask mandates.

Since the start of 2021, the Allegheny County Health Department has ordered the closure of Reese’s Super Club in Duquesne for operating without a health permit, operating under a closure order, alcohol service without a meal, and lack of social distancing. The Warehouse in Pittsburgh’s Allentown neighborhood was shut down for similar violations.

Alleged repeat offender Hottie’s Martini and Cigar Bar in Carnegie was cited again on Jan. 9 after an inspection found the bar was open and running despite having been ordered to close numerous times for violating covid restrictions, according to the report from the Allegheny County Health Department.

The company that owns the bar, Three Durans, filed a federal lawsuit against the health department and others in December.

The lawsuit, in addition to Allegheny County and its health department, also names the state Liquor Control Board, Carnegie Police Department. The lawsuit contends Carnegie police have ordered the bar to shut down “on multiple occasions, as the result of alleged ‘covid violations.’”

The bar was first ordered closed for one week in late September for not requiring masks, exceeding occupancy restrictions and serving alcohol past the related curfew instated by the state Department of Health. The bar opened again for two weeks in October when it was ordered closed again for the same violations.

A re-inspection a week later kept the bar closed, and the Liquor Control Board suspended Three Durans’s liquor license for two weeks, according to the lawsuit. The owners claim the mitigation orders on which the closures and suspensions were based “have no valid basis in law.”

The lawsuit accuses a Liquor Control Board inspector of referring to the bar’s customers as “them people” and “intimated that the ‘shutdown’ was racially motivated based upon Hottie’s African-American customers.”

The lawsuit claims the orders are not enforceable, the defendants and the governor improperly extended their emergency powers, the mitigation orders violate the state’s separation of powers doctrine, the owners were deprived of due process and equal protection, the defendants conspired to violate the owners’ civil rights and all of it was at least partially racially motivated.