Owners, Bartenders or Individuals who should be liable? Are stores next?
Posted by: info | December 21, 2006
It seems that almost every year alcohol related traffic accidents continues to increase. Unfortunately many of these accidents end up in fatalities. Now courts are holding some bartenders and owners liable for these tragic accidents.
If your company holds a Christmas party or year end event and serves alcohol the owner or person in charge could even be liable. This is part of the reason many companies are starting to hold events near a bar but not inside of it. Companies may only give you 1 or 2 drink tickets to avoid being liable for your actions. First of all before I express my opinion I want everyone to know I am strongly against drinking and driving. If you have a drink designate a driver or call a cab. So who should be liable?
Do you think that an owner of a bar or a party should be liable? They may not even be present at the time. Is it possible for an owner to watch over every individual in the company or bar? It almost seems to be impossible. There have been owners who had to pay big fines or even close shop after being held liable for tragic accident(s). If an owner could be held accountable why could a store owner not be held accountable? If you have a liquor store and someone has an accident after drinking a product the store sold, could they be held liable? What would the difference be between the bar owner or store owner? They never see the customer, they sold liquor and the accident happens off premises.
Should the bartender be held liable? I think the bartender sees and knows a lot more than the owner about each individual and the amount of drinks they have had. Would if the customer had drinks before coming up to the bartender. And how can a bartender be expected to determine when one becomes intoxicated? The hyper or obnoxious people are easy to spot and cut off. There are others that are very good at hiding and holding their alcohol. Sometimes police officers even have trouble one on one determining if one is drunk. So how could this be easy for a bartender? They are not trained like an officer and don’t have the time to do the same type of test on a one on one basis. Maybe the answer would be to have the customer take a breathalyzer test before each drink. One problem with this would be the test may read higher than normal since they have just had a drink. Also many people would complain but it might have to come down to something like this to protect the bartenders and owners. It may read higher than normal as well since they have just had a drink.
Should it be left to the individual? This is the only person who has control over everything. They can control when and how much they drink. They can control assigning a designated driver or calling a cab and completely avoid drinking and driving at all cost. Also they know exactly how much they drank and the time it took them to do it. They should also be able to determine when to say when. This would be my choice for who should be responsible. Look at the facts. If they would obey the laws their government has set we would not even be having this conversation. The individual should be punished harshly and fined big for being involved in one of these accidents or caught driving.
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