Citizen Smith Explains Momentary Loss of Booze

Signage from jleighb, Flickr

After we reported that a FOE (Friend of Eater) wandered into Citizen Smith last week to find the place completely devoid of alcohol, James Sinclair, managing partner of the Paja Group, who recently added Citizen Smith (third owner in about as many years) to its Hollywood repertoire (La Cantina, Element), wanted to clear the air:

Just wanted to send a quick note to clarify the situation at Citizen Smith. I just recently started the process to purchase this venue and as a result had a number of items to "clean up". It took Wednesday and Thursday which we chose as we did not want to interfere with our new Mon/Tue promotions or the weekend. There is nothing worse than having to explain this to every customer that walks in, but I would much prefer to explain it in person than have the doors closed and people make their own assumptions. No citations, no suspended license but an awful lot of fun rumors flying about. We restarted the service of alcohol on Friday as planned.

There were, in fact, some citations but Sinclair says they've "been cleared." As for the liquor license, it's curious that one isn't listed on the ABC website but CS can still serve booze. The whole thing sounds messy, and surely there's some underlying story that isn't being discussed, at least to us.
· The Case of the Missing Booze at Citizen Smith [~ELA~]