Remedy's to remain closed after liquor license denied

The Carson City Board of Supervisors, acting as the Liquor and Entertainment Board, denied a liquor license for Remedy’s Bar on Thursday but not before hearing from patrons and employees who described the bar as a kind of family.

The bar, which has been closed since October when its business license was suspended, will remain closed indefinitely, applicant Mary Sellars told the Appeal.

The vote was 5-1 to uphold the city’s Feb. 7 denial of a tavern/bar license for M&M Frogs LLC doing business as Remedy Bar at 306 E. William St. That initial denial was based on the Carson City Sheriff’s Office’s recommendation to not approve the application for a liquor license.

Sheriff Ken Furlong sits on the Liquor and Entertainment Board, and his office conducts background checks for those seeking licenses. In making their decision, supervisors cited Carson City Municipal Code 4.13.125, specifically issues of suitability and prohibitions against anyone “who has intentionally falsified information on, or omitted information from, a liquor license application within the past five years.”

“I’m not trying to call you a liar, but all we can do is look at the preponderance of documentation and then decide whether or not there was omitted information, and I feel that there was, and so I just can’t support this application because it’s just not clean,” said Mayor Lori Bagwell.

However, Bagwell told Sellars, “I think that your heart is there, but I just haven’t seen you demonstrate the ability to follow the rules.”

Supervisor Maurice White voted against the rest of the board, saying Sellars didn’t intentionally omit information.

“I’m going to hang my hat on one word, ‘intentionally,’” he said. “Water’s murky. I said we’ve been going around in circles with this deal for a long time. I am with Kenny (Sheriff Furlong) on when is enough enough out of this establishment? But that word ‘intentionally’… I haven’t seen anything today where the subject of our conversation is Mary Sellars. I have not seen where she has intentionally falsified or omitted information. Is it erratic? Is it not understandable, ‘what the hell is going on?’ Absolutely. But that word ‘intentionally’ is a big word in this situation. I can’t support the denial of this liquor license.”

The bar used to be Toads, opened by Sellars’ husband, Mike Sellars, and his family in 2006. After a shooting at Toads in 2012, new ownership changed the bar to Remedy’s. Furlong pointed out Thursday that ownership of the bar and the lease of the building have involved Mike Sellars, whom the sheriff’s office has tied to the Vagos Motorcycle Club and past incidents at the bar. Furlong argued there were inconsistencies in business filings and other documents related to the application.

“When is enough enough?” he said. “I compliment your background. I compliment your support. But you are not the owner. You are not the manager… I dare say, I don’t know who is, and I dare say that as result of it, I feel like the city and the liquor board are being deceived.”

Sellars’ attorney, Justin Clouser, called the sheriff’s comments a “diatribe” and asked he recuse himself from the vote, which he did not.

“Mary Sellars is a licensed nurse practitioner,” Clouser told the board, emphasizing her background check was clean. “She has been vetted, and she has been approved, and she is licensed by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. I will guarantee you that the vetting process for that license is much stricter than the vetting process here for getting a liquor license.”

Several patrons and employees of the bar spoke about it being like “Cheers,” the popular sitcom set in a bar, and how Mary Sellars supported good causes, striving to help people.

Bartender Melissa Nash said she had worked nights by herself the last year Remedy’s was open and hadn’t had any problems.

“I always felt safe, didn’t need a bouncer,” she said. “We’re a family there. It’s definitely a family establishment. Mary is an amazing person; she would do anything for this community. I think she definitely deserves to have her liquor license and for us to all go back to work.”

Ultimately, supervisors decided they couldn’t issue another license.

“I happen to know that Mary is a great person, without a doubt,” said Supervisor Curtis Horton. “But this is some super muddy water, and it’s very inconsistent, and I can’t support it.”

After the hearing, Mary Sellars told the Appeal five employees had been affected from the bar’s closure, and she was now in a lease on the building without a business to produce income. She said felt like she’d been jumping through hoops.

Clouser said he would consider filing a petition for judicial review regarding the board’s decision.

In other action:

• Supervisors unanimously approved a joint grants submittal for the Carson City Fire Department and Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District for $1.7 million. The application will be submitted to the Bureau of Land Management for the Nevada Fuels Management and Community Fire Assistance Program, and CCFD could see a subaward of nearly $500,000, with no local match, for preventive wildfire fuels reduction in northeast Carson.

• Supervisors authorized the mayor to execute permanent and temporary easements with a number of property owners for the Southeast Sewer Extension Project.

The extension project is making city sewer available to homeowners in that corner of the city who have private septic systems, which the city blames for high nitrate levels in nearby production wells. Of 27 easements needed for the expansion – the city has already agreed to waive sewer connection fees temporarily — only five would require the city to pay a fee for the easement, with the cost of all easements totaling $60,000.

White voted against the item, which was originally on the consent agenda. He questioned whether septic systems were to blame as nitrate levels have not declined with several phases of the project already completed. He wondered if the city should work with homeowners to test domestic wells.

“The city’s deep production wells do not necessarily have a vertical connection to the shallower private domestic wells. Why are we not testing the private domestic wells?” he said, emphasizing city is spending $10 million on the extension project.

“In general, it’s not something that private property owners want to do,” said Public Works Director Darren Schulz. “As Supervisor White stated, this isn’t new. We’ve been churning along with this project for decades. And really, the current Public Works Administration, we’re just trying to complete it.”

Schulz did agree with White that current data shows a plateau in nitrate levels. He said not enough time has elapsed, “but we have full expectation that over time, and as we use those wells more, that it will clear up and the issue will go away.”