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KALAMAZOO, MI No one will face charges related to alleged beverage tampering at Y Bar and Bistro, Kalamazoo County District Attorney Jeff Getting confirmed on Thursday, June 10.
Two people, including one of the bar’s co-owners, will face charges for serving alcohol to minors, said Ryan Bridges, public information officer for the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety.
Related: Kalamazoo Officer Defended Y Bar Owner At First Hearing Of Allegations Of Alcohol Adulteration, Report Says
The police investigation was closed almost two months after the drink tampering allegations were first reported on April 15. Several women said they believed their drinks were drugged by Y Bar co-owner Jon Rockwood on April 12. The allegations made international headlines after a TikTok video of one of the perpetrators went viral.
After the investigation was completed, the case was referred to the Kalamazoo County District Attorney’s Office on June 7, Bridges said.
No drink tampering charges have been filed, prosecutor Jeff Getting told MLive via text message. There was not sufficient evidence to charge Rockwood or a bartender working that night with drink tampering, Getting said.
Rockwood has previously denied that there was any truth to the allegations. He said the company is cooperating fully with police, in a May 5 YouTube video. Rockwood could not be reached for comment on June 10.
Related: Kalamazoo Bar Co-Owner In Drinks Tampering Investigation Denies Wrongdoing
Sadly, we live in a time when false and damaging information like this can be proclaimed as the truth on social media, and the culture of cancellation threatens the livelihoods of a small business owner like me, has Rockwood said in the video.
A woman told police she had had two drinks and two shots over a 2.5 hour period and then had almost no memory of the rest of the night, according to KDPS police reports obtained by MLive in under a freedom of information law.
Police filmed video footage captured by cameras inside the bar on the night of the alleged drink tampering incident. Wide-angle images show many people sitting at tables, at the bar and dancing while being served drinks all night.
We have many hours of investigation on this, said KDPS deputy chief Dave Boysen. We went through every second of this video, watched every person in this video, their movements. We watched it a few times to make sure we didn’t miss a thing.
Police tested alcohol samples in the bottles and inspected the bottles for tampering, Boysen said.
Women who said they were drugged were tested for over-the-counter drugs, according to the police report. Some tests showed they had opioids in their system. However, some tests were invalid, according to the report.
These tests are also inadmissible in court, Boysen said. By the time the women made the police report, any drugs would have been out of their system, he said.
It is what it is, Boysen said. There is nothing out there that we can charge more than what we did.
Reporting the drink tampering allegations took several attempts, the women told police.
A woman made her first call to KDPS on April 13, the day after the incident. That call ended when an officer told him that he was friends with Rockwood and that there was no way for Rockwood to use drugs, according to the woman’s statement to police.
In a separate report from KDPS officer Aaron DeWaal, the officer describes one of the women making the allegations over the phone on April 13. .
After speaking with the woman who declined to report, DeWaal said he called Rockwood and told him about the allegations. Rockwood told DeWaal he was unaware of the drug distribution in the bar, according to the report.
It’s only normal for officers to make these kinds of calls, Boysen said. He said a patrol officer usually takes the victim impact statement, talks to witnesses and the suspect, puts it all in a report and sends it to the detective’s office for further investigation.
The woman who called KDPS on April 13 then attempted to file a report over the phone with Michigan State Police Station Paw Paw, she told police. The soldier she spoke with asked her if it was drugged drinks before she even said anything about what had happened, according to her statement.
She told police that the soldier on the phone then apologized to KDPS and told them she should report through them, according to her statement. The Bar and Bistro is located in the town of Kalamazoo.
The same woman and another person went to police at Western Michigan University to report the incident the next day, April 14. They were told to report to the Kalamazoo Police Department, the statement said.
They searched for Kalamazoo Police and ended up at the Kalamazoo County Police Department, where they were then directed to a KDPS post. From that post, they were sent to KDPS headquarters where an officer took the report on April 15, two days after the incident, according to police reports.
There is nothing as evidence to support the victims’ claims, Boysen said. Unfortunately, without any evidence we could prove, we were unable to move the case forward other than the charge of what we could prove, which was providing alcohol to minors.
The women told police during the drink tampering investigation that they liked going to the Y Bar because they knew they could buy drinks, despite being under the age of 21, according to the police report.
Rockwood now faces four counts of misdemeanor selling or providing alcohol to a minor, according to Kalamazoo County District Court records. He is due to be brought to justice on June 23. A female bartender also faces the same charges, Getting said.
The April incident was not the first time that drink tampering allegations were made at the bar near the campus of Western Michigan University.
A woman told police in January 2020 that she believed someone drugged her drink at the Y-Bar and raped her. In November 2020, another woman told police she was sexually assaulted in the woods near the bar and couldn’t remember parts of that night.
Protesters gathered outside the Y Bar on April 19, the week after the allegations were made public to raise awareness of the issue and help educate potential victims.
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