Crime & Safety

Bar Owner Paints Herself as Victim in Drug Case

The owner of the Broadway Ale House in downtown Santa Monica has completed a rehabilitation program after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine. But her alcohol license remains suspended.

The owner of the Broadway Ale House——blames her troubles on a "crazy-ass" employee and a spiteful police officer.

Eden Beloved Noe was arrested in the spring on several drug-related charges—two of which were later dismissed—on a warrant obtained during an  investigation that began when police received information she was selling drugs from the , authorities said.

She pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine after police pulled her over as she drove on Broadway Boulevard in April. She completed a rehabilitation program on Oct. 27 that will see the charge erased from her record.

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In an email, Noe said drugs were being sold out of the bar—but not by her.

She said that she had a "crazy-ass" employee with a "severe cocaine problem.  He "wasn't ever arrested even [though] he's the one who did the drugs and sold them," she wrote.

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Noe went on to write that it was a mistake to have hired the man.

The Santa Monica Police Department declined to comment.

To sell alcohol again at the Ale House, Noe will need to transfer her license, which she held for two years before it was stripped from her Dec. 6 by the state Department of Alcohol Beverage Control.

The department suspended the license indefinitely after Noe's arrest and a subsequent charge in May that she sold alcohol to a minor decoy. She said the decoy was sent in under "extremely sneaky" circumstances by a police officer whom she described as vengeful. 

"The drug cop who did the investigation was pissed off my case was dismissed, so he sent a decoy while there was a pub crawl going on to get me for sale to minor," she said. "The decoy got in line with the pub crawl, so that was extremely sneaky. The cop was pissed, so he wanted to harass me with something else."

According to the police department, the Ale House was one of about 30 locations that were targeted that night with underage decoys, and it wasn't during a pub crawl.

"A violation is a violation," said police Sgt. Richard Lewis.

Alcohol and Beverage Control is currently reviewing an application to transfer the beer and wine license to Mark Jason Marquez. It could take up to 100 days to review the application, which was submitted in November, said spokesman John Carr.

"I've learned in 2011 that life is unfair and the police aren't exactly out to catch the bad people," Noe concluded in her email. "The bad ones are the ones who get away."


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