Riverton City Council crunches stricter alcohol enforcement

RIVERTON — If a liquor license holder in Riverton violates the law – be it staying open late or serving an underaged customer – what happens?

While the city does have an ordinance on the books that empowers city leaders to impose escalating consequences for alcohol establishments, council member Karen Johnson said in practice, oftentimes infractions are handled with just a talk. 

She'd like some more teeth and accountability built into how Riverton handles and enforces these kinds of situations, and earlier this month the council sat down to hash out the details.

On the table is a model currently used in Cody and Laramie, and under consideration in Lander. 

It would include a demerit-style point system under which liquor establishments could earn negative points against their licenses when convicted of an alcohol infraction. It would also require better tracking of incidents at bars and other alcohol businesses, requiring the court clerk to notify the city clerk when a citation is issued.

"All it would be doing is adding a point system, and that is primarily to hold ourselves accountable," Johnson said of the proposal. "And that is primarily to hold ourselves accountable. Over the years I think when violations have occurred or things have been discovered we typically go in and just visit with [the license holder] … There's been plenty of violations."

Johnson recounted past violations that didn't appear to legally proceed, including a time when an establishment's license application included inaccurate information. 

She also pointed to the reason the city recently expanded alcohol sale hours on Sundays: Because bars were already violating the restricted hours on the books.

The proposal would have the point system expire and begin again after 12 months, and licensees would still have the ability to appeal convictions. 

Current state law says that only a district court judge can actually repeal an existing liquor license, but if city leaders were to identify a problem establishment that wasn't taking proper steps to address its legal missteps, the city could refuse to renew a license when they come up for renewals in January.

Riverton Mayor Tim Hancock asked whether there were many alcohol violations over the last year. 

"The short answer is ‘not that I know of,’" responded Riverton Police Chief Eric Hurtado. 

He explained that a search of police calls over the last few years generated nearly 700 calls to alcohol establishments, but that staff would have to manually go through to sort out things like shoplifting complaints and parking tickets to see how many of them were alleged violations on the part of the license holders.

Johnson said she started examining issues with alcohol establishments as the council took up the issue of public safety generally, and she found several instances in which violations appeared to have occurred. 

However, the owners didn't appear to face consequences from the city. 

"The reason (the issue of) the minors in bars is being discussed is because there were minors in the bar," she noted. "And issues were not documented. And that is unacceptable … We need to be accountable just like the bar owners do."

"I think it's worthwhile to continue this discussion," Hancock said, explaining that because points would only be generated by a conviction, it would be a fair way for the city to improve tracking violations and give license holders a better idea of what to expect when a mistake is made. 

"I think it makes our lives easier, [and it] makes lives easier for the liquor license holders too," he said.

Council member Eric Carr agreed. 

"The difference between expectation and performance is accountability," he said, adding that the city's expectations are properly codified, and a point system would help consistently measure licensees' performances of those measures. 

"What gets measured gets improved," Carr said.

Lander's plan

The city of Lander is also considering changes to its liquor license laws. In October, Lander took its first look at a draft ordinance that would introduce a similar system of demerit points, with fines outlined for various point totals within a given timeframe.

This system didn't come out of nowhere; in June, the council wrestled with its lack of a middle ground option between a warning and taking a business to court in order to pursue completely revoking its liquor license. Later in the summer, a somewhat controversial liquor license application brought the topic up again.

At the council's Oct. 14 meeting, Lander Mayor Missy White noted that she'd taken the city's proposed demerit system to some other Fremont County municipalities, and that some of them had expressed interest in Lander's new approach.

The first reading for Lander's proposed ordinance changes will be on Oct. 28.

This story was published on Oct. 25, 2025.