Ontario Provincial Police have taken the highly unusual step of laying charges against a Muskoka resort and 16 of its employees in connection with three traffic fatalities.

Last summer Cory Mintz, 20, Tyler Mulcahy, 20, and Kourosh Totonchian, 19, died after the car they were riding in burst through a guardrail and struck a tree before ending up on its side in the Joseph River.

The OPP said at the time that its investigators had determined that alcohol and speed were "definite factors" in the crash that killed the three young men from Toronto.

An autopsy confirmed that all three drowned.

On Monday, police in Bracebridge announced they were charging 16 employees, along with the directors of the Lake Joseph Club with offences under the Liquor Licence Act in connection with the deaths.

The 34 charges include allowing drunkenness on the premises of the club as well as serving liquor to an apparently intoxicated person.

The three victims had been visiting the cottage of Mintz's mother and decided to have a late lunch at the restaurant in nearby Port Sandfield.

While returning to the cottage the car hit a guardrail on the Joseph River bridge, crashed through trees and plunged into the water.

"The vehicle had hit and peeled back about 30 feet [about nine metres] of guardrail, and had launched itself and snapped some pine trees off approximately 25 feet [about 7.6 metres] in the air," Jim Sawkins, fire chief for the Township of Muskoka Lakes, told CBC News.

The speed limit for that section of road is 80 km/h. Sawkins said he believed the car was travelling much faster.

The deaths helped prompt new legislation that will put a strict ban on drinking for any driver 21 and under.

A fourth member of the party, Nastasia Elzinga, 19, of Toronto survived the crash.