County Ethics Office Investigated County Board Chair, Decided Against Action

In January, the county launched an investigation after a manager at a North Park bar alleged that the chair of the county Board of Supervisors flashed her county government ID at the door when asked to prove she was at least 21 and then accidentally left it behind. 

The Part Time Lover manager reported the incident to the county nearly three weeks after the apparent Jan. 10 incident. He claimed that Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer “behaved rudely and acted ‘entitled’” and “insisted she did not need to show identification.” He did not directly interact with Lawson-Remer or witness her interactions with other staff. 

A subsequent county probe appeared to come to a halt the day after it started. County officials decided it was too trivial to continue investigating. Lawson-Remer wasn’t reprimanded, interviewed or even notified of the claims until recently. 

Records show an initial county investigation concluded Lawson-Remer used her county badge to get into the bar despite it not including proof of her age and then left it behind, though she later “properly report(ed) the loss of her badge.” 

Lawson-Remer’s office confirmed she didn’t get word of the bar manager’s allegations or the ethics investigation into them until last week as county officials prepared to respond to a Voice of San Diego Public Records Act request.  

County spokesperson Tammy Glenn said county officials initially decided against notifying Lawson-Remer of the allegations because they “didn’t warrant further investigation.” She did not clarify who made that call. 

The director of the county’s Office of Ethics, Compliance and Labor Standards said his office decided it wasn’t worthwhile to dig in further.  

“The Office of Ethics and Compliance did not complete this investigation because the matter was determined to be too minor to warrant further review,” Director Branden Butler wrote in a statement. “Sometimes we receive meritless complaints, and in this instance, it was concluded that the complaint lacked merit and none of the allegations warranted further investigation.”  

Lawson-Remer’s office said she was home in Encinitas eating dim sum from Dumpling Bar the Friday night the bar manager claimed she flashed her county ID outside Part Time Lover. A DoorDash receipt shared with Voice shows she paid for the order at 6:50 p.m. on Jan. 10. 

Lawson-Remer’s office did not respond to other questions from Voice, deferring to Butler’s statement. 

The Part Time Lover bar manager, whose name is redacted in county records, told county investigators that the bar’s door person told him that Lawson-Remer “claimed she did not need to show ID” when she showed up at the bar on Jan. 10. The manager said the door person let Lawson-Remer in despite a policy requiring all bargoers to show valid identification to enter.  

Later, county records show, another person at the bar found Lawson-Remer’s county ID – which includes her photo and identifies her as a supervisor – and handed it to the door person. 

The manager said he would try to connect county investigators with the door person, but records provided to Voice don’t describe a subsequent interview. 

On Jan. 28, the bar manager texted a photo of the ID to a county staffer. He apparently still had it. The manager initially told the county staffer he thought Lawson-Remer “got drunk.”  

When investigators interviewed the manager the next day, they acknowledged he could not confirm whether she drank at the bar. 

The county’s initial investigation stated there “was no evidence that (Lawson-Remer) was drunk or intoxicated in public.” 

Part Time Lover and Consortium Holdings, the hospitality company behind it, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. 

Four days after the Friday night that the Part Time Lover manager claimed Lawson-Remer came to the bar, one of her staffers emailed the county’s security office to report her county ID missing and ask that it be deactivated. 

The county’s initial investigation found that a “preponderance of evidence” suggested Lawson-Remer violated a county policy on improper government activities and complaint procedures. 

Investigative records released to Voice after a records request describe them as an “interim report.” 

“The county received the report, and after an initial investigation, determined that the conduct did not warrant further investigation, thus leaving the following report as an ‘Interim Report,’” a document cover sheet reads. “Consequently, the subject was not notified of the complaint, was not interviewed, and did not receive a letter with the investigation’s findings.” 

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