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TAMPA - They drink too much beer at MacDinton's.
That's right. They're throwing back too much Harp, quaffing too many pints of Guinness.
And if people don't start drinking less and eating more, the Irish pub on S Howard Avenue could lose the right to sell any alcohol at all.
This is not a joke.
On Thursday, the City Council voted unanimously to send MacDinton's before the Code Enforcement Board for violating the conditions of its wet zoning.
The reason? They sell too much beer.
The happy hour crowd may see MacDinton's as one of those Hyde Park spots where women and men eye each other over frosty pints. But city officials consider the establishment, formally known as MacDinton's Irish Pub & Restaurant, to be just that - a restaurant. And for a restaurant, city codes require 51 percent of gross sales come from food.
That's a lot of Shepherd's Pie.
But MacDinton's is not selling enough chow, or maybe they're selling too much Heineken. Either way, the restaurant has reported to the city that it sells three times as much as alcohol as food.
In the six months ending in December, the restaurant said beer and liquor sales accounted for 75 percent of business, or $259,048.
And why not?
They have 12 types of beer on draft and 23 kinds in the bottle.
If MacDinton's does not turn around this drinking trend, the owners could apply for a different type of zoning that allows them to sell as much alcohol as they want.
But to get that approval, they would need to obtain a waiver, because the pub is near established bars and homes.
What will MacDinton's do? That wasn't clear Thursday. Managers were out on vacation, perhaps eating their fill.