The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) suspended alcohol sales at a Vista liquor store after finding the store sold alcohol to a minor who shared it with another minor that caused a deadly crash on Interstate 5 last March.
A 20-year-old man from Oceanside bought liquor twice at Beverage House Liquor on East Vista Way on March 22, 2022, without showing his ID, according to the ABC. The minor and his underage friends took the liquor with them to San Diego that night, and on their way back, caused a crash that killed one of the friends, the ABC said.
The deadly crash happened at about 2:45 a.m. on northbound I-5 near the La Costa Avenue bridge, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Isidrone Martinez, 20 at the time of the crash, was driving her Honda Civic with four passengers back toward Vista, according to CHP. She was driving northbound on I-5, through a Caltrans construction zone, when she swerved into a Toyota Prius.
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After hitting the Prius, the Civic drove up an embankment and rolled over several times. As it tumbled, 20-year-old Ezequiel Beas from Oceanside was ejected from the car and died at the scene of the crash.
The driver and a passenger in the Prius suffered minor injuries, and Martinez, another 20-year-old male from Oceanside, a 20-year-old female from Oceanside and a 22-year-old female from Valley Center were taken to the hospital with major injuries. Martinez later pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years and 8 months in custody, according to the ABC.
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“My brother is gone, we can never bring him back, but 45 days and they can sell alcohol all over again, maybe to a minor again,” Beas' sister Savannah Aguilar said. “I was 8 months pregnant, about to give birth, and everything happened, and I gave birth like a week after I buried my brother and he never got to meet his niece.”
“Preventing underage drinking is a public safety priority,” ABC Director Joe McCullough said in a Tuesday news release. “It is important for licensees to check IDs to prevent tragedies like this from occurring.”
Beverage House can't sell alcohol for the next 45 days, and if the liquor store is caught selling alcohol to a minor again in the next two years it could have its license revoked permanently, the ABC said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) funds the ABC's Target Responsibility for Alcohol Connected Emergencies (TRACE) program, under which the ABC investigates alcohol-related incidents involving minors causing great bodily injury or death, or anyone charged with vehicular manslaughter that was under the influence of alcohol regardless of age.
