Food and beverage service workers at the Moda Center are raising fresh concerns with their bosses about alcohol sales at the arena’s self-service kiosks.
Two years ago, Levy Restaurants, the longtime food, beverage, and retail service provider for the Rose Quarter, partnered with Amazon to bring Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology to four stores inside the arena.
Workers say attendees at basketball games and concerts take full advantage of the self-service stores, where they can purchase food and drinks, including alcoholic beverages, without standing in lines.
But the sale of alcohol at the self-service stores also presents issues for the Levy employees who staff the stores. Self-service alcohol is illegal at OLCC licensed establishments, which means that workers are tasked with checking IDs and opening any alcoholic beverages purchased at the stores. This can be difficult, particularly when the stores get crowded—as they often do.
“It’s chaotic,” Antonia Byers, a Levy employee who has worked at the stores, said. “It’s hard to keep track of people with the alcohol serving, because they can pick up their own drinks, and sometimes they open them themselves, and that’s against the OLCC rules.”
In late October, a group of more than 30 employees signed a letter addressed to Levy, the Portland Trail Blazers, and the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) stating that they “are not in complete control of alcohol distribution and cannot guarantee the safety and legality of all alcohol sales” at the arena.
The letter states that “alcohol safety regulations are broken frequently,” and asks that all employees working at the self-service stations receive written training manuals clearly outlining their responsibilities at the stations, including what to do when people attempt to walk away from the kiosks without having their IDs checked or drinks opened.
It also asks that the arena provide security personnel to help enforce the rules at the kiosks, and that OLCC officials hold a site-specific training session for self-service kiosk workers as well as a question-and-answer session closed to management.
The stakes for the self-service store workers are significant: If someone who is underage or visibly intoxicated takes an alcoholic beverage from a self-service station and causes a drunk driving accident, the employee at the self-service station can be held legally responsible.
Alex D’Auora, who delivered the letter to Levy management, said workers have been told by an HR director that the company is forming a committee to make recommendations for the self-service stores—a response that D’Aurora did not find satisfying.
“This has been in there for two years,” D’Auora said. “They’re holding our demands in their hands—we don’t need to be on a committee to tell them what we think. It felt insincere, and like another way of avoiding accountability.”
In a statement, a Levy spokesperson said the “frictionless markets” add “speed and convenience for Portland fans.”
“We uphold strong protocols to ensure responsible alcoholic beverage service at each location,” the spokesperson wrote. “All team members received training prior to the season and we continue [to] provide regular training opportunities throughout the season.”
An OLCC spokesperson confirmed to the Mercury that the commission has received complaints about self-service at the arena, which prompted an in-person OLCC inspection.
The spokesperson also said OLCC staff have provided trainings for Levy employees, and has made Levy aware that “they will continue to do compliance checks to ensure that both their staff and management are operating these kiosks in accordance with Oregon’s alcohol laws.”
This is not the first time workers at the Moda Center have spoken out about the challenges they face working at the self-service kiosks. Last year, as workers levied similar concerns about the self-service system, OLCC officials worked with Levy to bring the system into compliance with state law.
But D’Auora said that despite temporary improvements in conditions at the self-service stores after the OLCC’s intervention last year, Levy quickly reverted to a more laissez faire approach that failed to take workers’ concerns into account.
“The unwritten policy of the company is to allow self-service,” D’Auora said. “That’s what it was when they put it in, and they’ve only come off of it as much as they’ve been forced to. So the second that no one is looking, the second they think they’re free, they’ll just go right back.”
Part of the issue is logistical: people may not know that they are not allowed to serve themselves alcohol, even if the alcohol is being sold at what is ostensibly a self-service station. One employee, who asked not to be named due to a fear of retaliation, said Levy hasn’t done enough to set their employees up to comply with OLCC rules.
“Their signage sucks,” the employee said. “They don’t have a place for you to set the cans down so you can easily open them, there’s no lighting for looking at IDs.”
The lack of awareness about the rules can create further problems. Some people become aggressive when employees attempt to open their drinks, while others, unwittingly or not, simply walk away from the station.
Byers said that she routinely caught multiple people each night attempting to leave without having their drink opened or ID checked in her time working at the self-service stations, and was also reprimanded on occasion for failing to open a customer’s drink.
Recently, workers said, Levy has begun stationing newer workers who have received little training on how to work at the self-service stations at those stations.
Byers said new Levy management at the Moda Center has been easier to work with than the previous management regime and that they’re “trying the best they can.”
Nevertheless, the size of crowds alone can make it difficult for workers to comply with OLCC rules. Byers said that she wants to see the number of people allowed in the self-service stores limited—something she attempts to do of her own volition when she’s working.
“If it seems to get really full, and I’m working in the front, I will stop it and tell them, ‘You’re going to have to wait a minute before you go in,’” she said. “Sometimes I get flack, sometimes people understand, but I know that I don’t want to be in trouble and I know that they’re watching.”
The employee who declined to be named, meanwhile, said the contents of the stores themselves need to be changed.
“You need to separate the alcohol from the food so that people who are buying alcohol are all 21, [so we can] check your ID, and let them go through—same as you would at a bar,” the employee said. “When you combine the food and the alcohol together, when you’re trying to do half-and-half and this-and-that, it creates a lot of confusion and a lot of points for conflict.”
