News

4 Days Without Booze At Cowgirl

Mark Oswald

10/04/2012

Oct. 04--The Cowgirl BBQ won't be selling booze for four days later this month after a state government finding that two women were overserved before a wrong-way crash in 2010 in which one of them was killed.

But for those four days -- Oct. 22-25 -- half of the proceeds from lunch and dinner sales at the Cowgirl will go to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

"We're trying to follow through with the right thing to do," said Cowg i rl co -- owner Nichol a s B a l l a s. "This is a way we can use this to help raise s o m e c o n -- sciousness."

The popular bar and restaurant on Guadalupe Street also has been fined $10,000 in the drunken-driving case.

Kylene Holmes, of El Paso, died on Dec. 14, 2010, after she drove a Nissan Altima headon into an ambulance, at what police have estimated was a speed of more than 100 mph, on Interstate 25 just north of Cerrillos Road. Her passenger, Jennifer Belvin of Oceanside, Calif., was seriously hurt, as was 19-year-old ambulance driver Vanessa Carrillo of Santa Fe.

A hearing officer for the state Alcohol and Gaming Division concluded in June that Holmes had four vodka martinis and Belvin had three at the Cowgirl the night of the crash. The bartender remembered serving the women two drinks each.

They'd had at least one drink at another establishment ear- lier and Holmes had smoked marijuana at the La Quinta motel where the women were staying "before lunch and after dinner," Belvin told authorities.

At last call at the Cowgirl, Holmes tried to get the bartender to sell her and Belvin another drink each and when he refused, Holmes offered him a $20 tip. When he still declined, "Holmes told him that it was OK because the women had a bottle of Grey Goose in their car to drink," the hearing officer's report states. Police found the bottle in the car later, after the fatal I-25 crash.

As the women left the Cowgirl about 1:30 a.m., a bouncer tried to persuade them not to drive and offered to pay for a cab for the women. The hearing officer's report says the Cowgirl bouncer -- who called police to report the women -- saw them falling down and helping each other up and having a hard time getting into their car.

Based on what the Cowgirl's bouncer saw, bartender Joseph T. Maloney "either knew or had reason to know that each woman was intoxicated when he served them their last drinks," hearing officer Max Shepherd concluded.

Fol low i n g her de at h , Holmes' blood-alcohol content was measured at more than three times the legal driving limit, according to a toxicology report by the state Office of the Medical Examiner.

Shepherd's report also makes note of policies at the Cowgirl intended to prevent customers from driving drunk. It says that over the past 11 years, there have been 288 shift reports where the words "cut off" or "refused service" appear and that 123 times customers were offered a cab or one was called during a shift. "Many patrons have availed themselves" of cab service under the restaurant's policy to offer cab rides to people who appear intoxicated, the report states.

In a news release Wednesday, the Cowgirl said Loralee Ortiz, the executive director of MADD New Mexico, has expressed her support for the Cowgirl's donation event during the days without alcohol sales and that on some of those days MADD will have representatives present "to share their mission."