A Jersey Shore business's liquor license will be suspended and it will pay fines after a drunken patron got into a deadly crash.
Martell's Tiki Bar's liquor license will be suspended for 30 days for over-serving the already intoxicated patron who died in a motor vehicle crash. Under a settlement announced Thursday with the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control unit, Martell's will pay a $500,000 fine and won't be allowed to serve alcohol from Sept. 28 to Oct. 28. The license suspension is after the busy summer season.
The bar's staff will be required to undergo training on how to serve alcohol for as long as the current owners hold an interest in the liquor license.
Martell's had pleaded "no contest" to a charge of serving alcohol to an intoxicated person.
Police said 26-year-old Ashley Cheico, of Wood-Ridge, had been drinking for hours when she left Martell's, stole a vehicle from a valet lot and crashed into another vehicle head-on in Old Bridge in August 2013, killing herself and injuring another driver, Dana Corrar.
Corrar, who is a nurse, says her life changed after the accident and that she is currently unemployed. She recently had her seventh surgery and now walks with a cane. She was driving home from work at the time of the accident.
"I had two broken legs, both knees, both feet, my arm, my neck and three or four ribs," says Corrar, recounting her injuries.
Corrar hopes that the recent development means that the bar's insurance company will compensate her, adding that her life is in "limbo."