Keenan’s back in business

By Shannon McDonald

North Wildwood’s Keenan’s Irish Pub reopened Saturday after an 80-suspension.

The bar closed its doors Sept. 3, 2008 after repeated run-ins with New Jersey’s Division of Alcohol Beverage Control. Owner Scott Keenan puts some of the blame on the system.

Keenan’s employees confiscated 175 fake IDs last Memorial Day alone, and Keenan feels the bar is being punished more harshly than his underage patrons.

“We’re trying to send a message out there that we don’t need underage drinkers and we don’t want them,” Jack Keenan, Scott Keenan’s father and co-owner of the bar, told the Daily News.

Part of that message includes sending letters to a handful of the bar’s underage patrons, requesting contact from their legal representatives. Keenan has also contacted the city’s planning board about modifying the bar’s entrances to ensure better surveillance of IDs.

Now that the bar has officially reopened, Keenan is prepping for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, when he expects up to 3,000 people a night.

Keenan assures he’ll be ready.