For the Ropewalk Tavern in Bel Air, good news came just a little too late.
The day after owner Marc McFaul announced he was selling the Republican-themed bar because, he said, bad publicity had cost it business, the Harford County Republican Central Committee gave him its highest award for service to the party.
“I don?t know if the award would have changed anything, though now I?ll have more time to devote to doing things for the community,” McFaul said.
McFaul was given the Central Committee?s Virginia Scotten award for the many fundraisers he had hosted at the bar ? which, like the Federal Hill establishment of the same name, features a life-size statue of Ronald Reagan, Republican-themed T-shirts and plenty of Americana. Yet damage had already been done by a battle with the county liquor board over two fights last December that required police responses.
Ropewalk got bad publicity after agreeing that violations had occurred, and again in March when the liquor board handed down a $4,000 fine and a five-day suspension of the bar?s liquor license, McFaul said. An appeal delayed that suspension, but he said that the damage had already been done by headlines in Bel Air newspaper The Aegis declaring “Ropewalk guilty.”
“The phone would ring constantly with people who thought we?d lost our liquor license,” McFaul said. “I had staff who said their friends decided against coming because they thought we couldn?t serve alcohol.”
He took out ads in The Aegis mocking the headlines with copy like “Ropewalk guilty of serving kids free meals,” but the bar started to operate at a loss for the first time, McFaul said. Representatives from The Greene Turtle came to him with a very good offer last month and he accepted, he said. Ropewalk will close at the end of May.
The Virginia Scotten Award, named for a prominent Harford Republican who helped establish the county Commission on Aging, was decided before McFaul had announced the sale, said Michael Geppi, chairman of the Republican Central Committee.
