by Nick Delgado

Guam - While a process review is underway to determine if the Alcohol Beverage Control Board needs to make changes to the way it shuts down drinking establishments, ABC Board chair Lucy Perez defends Operation Dragon. Attorneys for several bars are considering legal action alleging the board members are acting outside of their authority and are not complying with the law.

Perez says the operations have been conducted in consultation with the Attorney General's Office, saying, "In the law both the administrator and the board share the same power so that's how we go out, and it's only those individuals that go that can actually shut down a bar and so that's why the board is out there with GPD."

Attorney Randy Cunliffe, who represents several bar owners, says that before a closure can occur, the board must file a sworn affidavit of the alleged violation. In the meantime Cunliffe has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get more information from the ABC Board. Perez meanwhile reiterates that the operation was never suspended and that the initiative was launched at the request of the governor after a 15-year-old girl was raped by two people who were under the influence of alcohol.