Bartender Charged After Intoxicated Man, 20, Drowned
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A Maple Grove bartender faces charges, authorities say, after she allegedly served a 20-year-old man liquor before he left the bar intoxicated, broke through the ice of a nearby pond and drowned last month.
Andrew Michael Pitts, of Brooklyn Park, drowned on April 26 in a pond near 12300 Elm Creek Boulevard. The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said Friday that one of Pitts' friends, a bartender at Claddagh Irish Pub, did not ID him and served him alcohol.
Witnesses told investigators that Pitts left the bar drunk, walked a sort distance to the pond southeast of the bar and broke through the ice. Authorities pulled Pitts from the pond, and he died a day later.
The Claddagh bartender, Rebekah Michal Thomas, is charged with selling liquor to someone under 21, a gross misdemeanor.
The incident remains under investigation, the sheriff's office said.
