Seaport restaurant gets license suspended for two days after cops find six teenagers swilling booze at a table

The Boston Licensing Board today ordered Coquette, inside the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, shut for two days as punishment for incident in which two BPD detectives found a table of six teenagers - one just 16 - at a table with drinks in front of them around midnight on Nov. 25.

The board actually ordered a four-day license suspension for what members called the "egregious violation," but held two of the days in abeyance for six months.

The restaurant operates under the hotel's overall liquor license, but the board only issued the license suspension for the restaurant, not the entire hotel. Coquette is run by Coje, which runs a series of restaurants in Boston, including Lolita and Yvonne's.

Board members acknowledged that Coquette has no previous violations, that it fired the server who failed to check the young women's IDs and that it retrained its workers, but rejected what they said was Coje's argument at a hearing Tuesday that what happened was somehow just the fault of one lone employee.

"They were all very young," and somebody else at the restaurant should have done or said something, board member Liam Curran said. "Someone should've seen this, it can't be just one person [to blame]. I do not accept that excuse that it was one rogue employee or whatever. "

At a Tuesday hearing, a restaurant manager acknowledged the restaurant does not check IDs at the door when a group has a reservation, which the six teens did.

Board member Keena Saxon added that the incident might not have even been an isolated case, because a police detective testified the teens told him and his partner that they went to Coquette specifically because they had read on social media it was easy to get a drink while under 21 there. "This is something that has been allowed before," she said.

Board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said that although this time the board was not going to punish the hotel itself for the violation at the restaurant, the hotel needs to be aware that it holds the liquor license and is ultimately responsible, and that the board might not be so lenient the next time. "They can't operate this way and expect the board to just look the other way when something like this happens."