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FORT MILL A Fort Mill mother is in jail after police say she gave her 4-year-old son “shots” of beer at a bar on Saturday.
Gretchen Lynn Kinnear, 44, is charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She is being held at the York County Detention Center.
Sometime after 8:30 p.m., a patron at McHale’s Irish Pub on Gold Hill Road told deputies he witnessed a woman giving a small child about three “shots of beer” after the manager and waitress asked her to stop, according to a York County Sheriff’s report.
Deputies found Kinnear sitting at a table with her son. Kinnear told police that she sampled some ale and gave her son some of it to drink from the shot glass it came in, the report states.
Kinnear told police she had given her son beer at least two other times while in the bar. Deputies spoke with the boy, who said his mother gave him “tea” that tasted funny and made him dizzy and laugh a lot, the report states.
He said his mother gave him the same kind of “tea” at home, as well. Kinnear admitted to police that she drinks wine at her home about once or twice a week and gives some to her son. She said she doesn’t do it to get him drunk or keep him quiet, the report states.
The York County Department of Social Services arrived and placed the boy in the custody of his babysitters.
