TGI Friday’s, 3054 NJ-35, Hazlet, NJ 07730 owned by The Braid Group of Livingston, NJ decided not to contest the charges that it was serving customers alcoholic beverages other than what they ordered. The charges include refilling liquor bottles which would imply that they were substituting liquor. The owners of this TGI Friday’s agreed to pay a fine of $400,000 plus $100,000 to cover the cost of the investigation by the New Jersey State Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) for refilling premium brand liquor bottles with cheaper liquor.

An investigation by the NJ ABC which was named ‘Operation Swill’, targeted 63 bars throughout the State. Based on consumer complaints and information from an informant, agents visited bars and ordered liquor without mixers or ice. When they were served they covertly took samples for field tests. The liquor samples were also sent to liquor manufactures to verify the field test results. Originally looking for liquor switching, a practice of refilling premium liquor bottles with a cheaper facsimile, the investigators found more than they were expecting when they were served a liquid containing rubbing alcohol in place of scotch.

In May 2013, the New Jersey ABC raided 29 bars one of which was the TGI Friday’s located at 3054 NJ-35, Hazlet, NJ 07730 for filling premium brand liquor bottles with non-premium brands to deceive the customer and increase their profits. As per the official Press Release by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office dated July 31, 2013, ‘ABC and Division of Criminal Justice Investigators raided 13 T.G.I. Friday’s owned by Braid during “Operation Swill” and seized approximately 250 bottles of spirits from those locations.’ Along with the 250 bottles of liquor that were seized by investigators several funnels from each location were confiscated. The funnels would of course be circumstantially evidence that the practice of refilling liquor bottles was a regular occurrence, and would intimate that they were substituting liquor.

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TGI Friday’s Fined for Substituting Liquor

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