Police probe of bar ongoing

Uncle Fester's and The Jungle Room are currently under investigation for 22 underage drinkers who were issued citations July 15. \nIndiana State Excise Sgt. Terry Bauer said the report on The Jungle Room and Uncle Fester's, on Kirkwood Avenue, has been sent to the prosecutor of the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission for review. The prosecutor will determine whether there has been a violation. The penalty could be a monetary fine and/or suspension of their liquor license.\n"We have received a number of complaints about the bar," Indiana State Excise Police Officer Brent McKinney said.\nSome of those complaints include underage drinkers, fighting and noise, McKinney said. \nThe IU and Bloomington Police Departments assisted State Excise Police to control the large crowd, check IDs and hand out summonses.\n"We assist Indiana State Excise Police on a number of operations because they have a limited force to address a large geographic area, so they have to depend on other departments such as us," IUPD Lt. Jerry Minger said.\nThe drinking laws were enacted to prevent other crimes, including underage drinking, sexual assault, driving while intoxicated, vandalism, public intoxication and physical violence.\n"Underage drinking may seem like a frivolous crime, but it is involved in a number of other crimes," Minger said. "Alcohol enforcement is really the basis for trying to address the enforcement in other crimes."\nMinger said the reason for targeting the Kirkwood Avenue bar was because of previous complaints regarding the lack of accurate checking of IDs. \n"From the number of arrests for underage drinkers, it appears that there was an inordinate number of underage drinkers in the bar, and I assume that management was not doing an adequate job of keeping underage drinkers out of the establishment," Minger said.\n-- Contact staff writer Daria Kamalipour at dkamlip@indiana.edu.