Beer sales will be suspended after the Christmas and New Year's holiday, from Jan. 4 to Jan. 7, at Ruth's Chris Steak House Chattanooga.
That's because during a March 19 sting operation, a 19-year-old waitress at the upscale restaurant near Hamilton Place shopping mall served Michelob Ultra draft beer to two 19-year-old decoys.
The Chattanooga Beer Board voted 5-2 on April 20 to suspend beer sales for three days at Ruth's Chris starting May 4.
But the restaurant's owner, Sizzling Steak Concepts, fought the suspension.
It hired Red Bank attorney Johnny Houston, who filed a May 1 appeal in Hamilton County Chancery Court that said the beer board's decision was "capricious," "arbitrary" and "unlawful" and that it would cause the franchise steak house "irreparable harm."
City attorney Keith Reisman fired back in court documents that argued the case should be dismissed because Houston hadn't had his documents sworn in, as required, by a judge, clerk of court or notary public.
The two sides agreed this month to the three-day January suspension of beer sales.
"That's our normal, first-stage [suspension]," Reisman said Tuesday.
Suspending beer sales in early January works better for Ruth's Chris, Houston said, because the restaurant had events planned in early May.
"The [May] suspension was going to take place pretty quickly," said Houston, who also serves as Red Bank city judge. "This way, there could be a little more planning."
Sizzling Steak Concepts owns 12 Ruth's Chris steak houses, with four restaurants in metro Atlanta and others in Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, the company's website says.
The partners are husband-and-wife Markham and Nancy Oswald and brothers Jim Brooks and Phil Brooks. They were all close with Ruth Fertel, the Louisiana founder of the steak house chain.
Markham Oswald told the Chattanooga Beer Board on April 20 that he was "devastated" by the sale to minors, that it was the first violation during his 41 years in the restaurant business, and that the "careless" waitress had been fired.
After the sting, servers at Ruth's Chris Steak House Chattanooga began to check the ID of all the restaurant's customers, Oswald said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/Meets ForBusiness or on Twitter @meet forbusiness or 423-757-6651.