BACLIFF — A Bacliff strip club served alcohol to 20-year-old Kristen Anet Sanchez before she wrecked her car in a pond and drowned on April 26, an attorney for her family claims.

“Right now, we’re looking at how she was able to get so much alcohol in her system and how she was able to leave in that condition,” said Tony Buzbee, an attorney representing the woman’s father, Ronnie Sanchez.

Family photo

Kristen Sanchez

Lipstick Gentlemen’s Club owner Alan Wheat said he can’t confirm a person’s employment for privacy reasons, but if Kristen Sanchez worked at his club, she would not have been served alcohol because the club has a zero-tolerance policy on underage drinking.

The minimum drinking age in Texas is 21. Kristen turned 20 on April 11.

Records from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission show the club received civil penalties in 2001 for sale of alcohol to a minor, permitting a minor to possess or consume alcohol and sale or delivery of drugs by an employee.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the commission said its officers would conduct an investigation to determine the source of the alcohol Kristen drank.

New Jersey resident Keith McLean said he was at the club the night of the wreck, and Kristen appeared drunk about 2 a.m. She wrecked in Texas City about 3:41 a.m. Tests showed her blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit limit for driving, and she had the illegal party drug Ecstasy in her system.

McLean said he arrived at the club about 1:20 a.m., 40 minutes before closing. He said Kristen appeared to be coming off a work shift and sat next to him.

“She was definitely drunk,” McLean said.

They exchanged phone numbers, and McLean told her to call him if she needed a ride. After he left, he sent her text messages asking if she had left the club, but he got no response.

Wheat said workers older than 21 are allowed one discounted drink with or without alcohol on each shift, but workers younger than 21 can’t have alcohol.

“The question I would be asking is what happened between 2 and 4 a.m.,” Wheat said. “I assure you they weren’t here. Those girls blow out the door like a freight train after 2 a.m. — that’s if she was working here.”

Cocktail waitresses sometimes stay about 30 minutes after closing for cleanup duties, he said.

The employees are all escorted to their vehicles by security guards, and customers aren’t allowed in the parking lot during that time, Wheat said.

‘Don’t go’

Johnimarie Richie, 27, is Kristen’s second cousin and close friend. She said the two of them were hired at the same time, about two weeks before the wreck. At that time, the club served both of them alcohol, she said.

“The manager straight up asked her, did she want a shot?” Richie said. “He took her over to the back room and gave her a shot.”

Richie and Kristen performed together at the club twice, Richie said.

The third time, Richie was supposed to join her cousin, but couldn’t find a baby sitter.

“I told her, ‘Don’t go,’” Richie said. “I talked to her before and after. She was on her way to meet up with me in Galveston at a party. I kept calling her and calling her. She never showed up.”

Richie said the pair knew each other’s deepest secrets. She said Kristen, an honors student who left a book bag full of graded school assignments — all As — in her apartment, was quiet and independent.

“This was before she even thought about dancing,” Richie said.

But she also had a wild side, and loved parties and the attention she got when she performed, Richie said.

Still, there were signs that she had crossed a line and regretted it. Her last text message, and one Richie thinks may have distracted Kristen from driving during a rainstorm, was to her boss at the Seawall Boulevard Sonic restaurant in Galveston. She said she had done something she didn’t like, and wanted to go back to work at Sonic.

Richie said Kristen had been depressed about family problems, compounded with the fact that her boyfriend joined the military and was suddenly gone from her life.

Ronnie Sanchez said he found, in one of Kristen’s school notebooks, two letters describing her depression and anxiety over another girl in her boyfriend’s life: “She’s really pretty. Is she better than me? Are you going to call her before you call me today? Are you going to see her when you come to see me?”

“She was really tore up about this,” Ronnie Sanchez said. “I was the first one to go into her apartment. The first thing I see is the pillow on her bed where you could see where she had been laying. Right next to her bed was three pictures of her and him. She had written ‘love’ across each one of the pictures.”