Recordkeeping, Signage, and Compliance
What must be posted
Post the permit itself, conspicuously, where it can be read - not in a drawer. Post any notices your permit class or the Division requires, plus required health and warning signage. If local option or a city ordinance requires additional placards, they go up too. Missing signage is the easiest citation an investigator can write because it needs no witness.
What must be kept
- Purchase and sales records, available for inspection by the Division and OIU.
- Employee records: who is trained, who is authorized to serve, who works which shift.
- An incident and refusal log with date, time, description of observed signs, action taken, and initials.
- Documentation of ID checks where a sale was refused or questioned. Records serve two audiences: the investigator in front of you, and a jury two years later. Write them the same day, in plain language, without opinions about the guest's character.
Working with an inspection
Be cooperative and stay out of the way. An OIU agent may enter permitted premises, ask for the permit, review records, and observe service. Calling the owner is fine; blocking a doorway or stalling is not.
Worked example
An agent arrives at 11 p.m., asks for the permit, and requests last week's invoices and the refusal log. The permit is framed by the door; invoices sit in a labeled binder; the log shows three refusals with times and reasons. The visit ends with a warning about a burned-out sign and nothing else. The same visit at a bar with the permit in an office drawer and no refusal log ends in a citation.
Traps
Relying on memory. Logging refusals only when the guest argues. Letting patrons bring in their own alcohol. Keeping the permit where staff cannot find it at shift change.