are bars responsible/liable for overserving?

[MechAg94]

Texas has been screwed up by some sort of weird baptist fundie tendency towards prohibition.

Not sure if all of TX has this, but the Dallas area has something called a unicard.  You can't buy a drink in a bar without having a unicard.

You must show your unicard and all drinks you buy are logged to your unicard.

I suspect that DPS has real-time access to unicard info.


Every time I went out when I lived there, I got a new unicard for every drink I had.  Unicards are free, and doing that makes it that much harder to aggregate info at the unicard level.  Sometimes I'd use my WA driver's license to get a card, sometimes I'd use my TX license, sometimes I'd use my passport.  Completely breaks a relational database all to hell.

I think Dallas is the home of MADD in Texas.  MADD has had a lot of political pull in Texas in recent decades. I think we are starting to see some push back though.

[lupinus]

Why should the bar be responsible for the actions of their patrons bad decisions or actions?

Perhaps a gun store should be responsible when a customer shoots someone?

[Levant]

Why pick on bars if you can't pick on the liquor store, the grocery store, the neighbor, the bottler, or anyone else who had a hand in a person having access to something they chose to misuse?  Why not charge the car manufacturer, the car salesman, the DMV?  Charge BVD for making the underwear he wore to go get drunk in.  The gasoline supplier who produced the gasoline for his car.

Just how far can we spread collateral responsibility?  I know the answer: just as far as a lawyer can see.

Generally, in gun forums, we find ourselves with folks who believe in the idea of individual responsibility. 

[AmbulanceDriver]

Oregon law is that you may not sell alcohol to a "visibly intoxicated person".  This applies to any establishment with a state issued license to sell alcohol (be it liquor store, bar,  grocery store, or stop-n-rob).  And yes,  Oregon is a control state. I'm somewhat torn on this.  It's not aggressively enforced, and it's difficult to prove in retrospect, but it has been used a couple of times here to establish civil liability against the bar in DUII crashes,  usually in fairly extreme cases -  I.e. continuing to serve someone that is stumbling blind plastere.  

Recent example:  http://www.katu.com/news/local/89368847.html

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

43 states assign some level of liability

[lupinus]

43 states assign some level of liability

And it's stupid.

What's your point?

[MillCreek]

Why should the bar be responsible for the actions of their patrons bad decisions or actions?

Perhaps a gun store should be responsible when a customer shoots someone?

We have those lawsuits in Washington as well.  Usually in the context of someone willfully ignoring BATF regs and selling to someone ineligble or a strawman purchase.

[MillCreek]

43 states assign some level of liability

It has been many a decade since we spent around 30 minutes discussing dramshop liability in Torts, but I thought I remembered that well over half the states had some form of dramshop liability.  It is up to 43 now, eh?

[Azrael256]

Texas has been screwed up by some sort of weird baptist fundie tendency towards prohibition.

Not sure if all of TX has this, but the Dallas area has something called a unicard.  You can't buy a drink in a bar without having a unicard.

You must show your unicard and all drinks you buy are logged to your unicard.

I haven't used a unicard in a decade.  I got one in '03, used it once, and I haven't been carded at all since then.  We tossed a bunch of our liquor laws here over the last decade.  We just got liquor in Plano a month or two ago.

[Fitz]

43 states assign some level of liability

Oh. So because someone passed a law, it's ok.

Right?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Oh. So because someone passed a law, it's ok.

Right?

if i knowingly sold a gun to some crackhead here where i live and he drove down rt 3 and hurt someone in your family would i be blameless?  particularly if i voluntarily assumed a license that specified it was illegal for me to do so?

[AmbulanceDriver]

I don't always agree w/ C&SD...   And while it rubs my libertarian side a little bit the wrong way, I think he's got a valid point in his analogy.

No one is saying that the drunk driver (or crackhead in his analogy) is blameless.  In fact, I would say he carries the vast majority of the blame.  But if someone is impaired, they may not have the judgment to determine if they have had too much to drink.  And while I don't worry so much about the drunk's safety (ultimately, he's responsible for that), I do worry about the other innocent people that have to share the road with said drunk. 

But my other side has had to go to too many scenes where the drunk is walking around not entirely sure that anything bad even happened, and I'm having to call for the Medical Examiner for the 17 year old who was coming home from their theater production.   Or the single mom who was out working her second job to provide for her kids.  Or maybe for the 8 year old who was just big enough to not be in a booster seat anymore.

So yeah.  That side of me doesn't give a rat's ass for the rights of a drunk to get absolutely *wasted* in a bar.

[Fitz]

if i knowingly sold a gun to some crackhead here where i live and he drove down rt 3 and hurt someone in your family would i be blameless?  particularly if i voluntarily assumed a license that specified it was illegal for me to do so?

They cut him off

They offered to get him a ride


What more should they have done? Keep in mind that often drunks order from different servers to avoid cutoffs

What do you think they could have done differently

[AmbulanceDriver]

Ok.  I think I missed the part where they cut him off.   I think that's the end of their liability.  In Oregon, that's the end of it.  The case I linked to here was an instance where they kept serving her even after she was obviously wasted.

[dogmush]

They cut him off

They offered to get him a ride


What more should they have done? Keep in mind that often drunks order from different servers to avoid cutoffs

What do you think they could have done differently

Yup, That's why when I worked bar security and cut someone off I also escorted them out.  There's no point to cutting someone off at one bar only to have them wander over to the beer tub girl.  And I was actively protecting my employer from liability by doing it, as FL also has laws against serving already drunk people.

That said, Being drunk is not a crime.  If it were the bars would have some liability in that.  What the guy does when he's drunk is his own responsibility.  In this case, the bar did everything they were supposed to and still people want them sued.  Bad things happen, and they aren't always a payday.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

they served him 20 drinks before they cut him off

damn phone

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

if he had bar hopped to get blasted that would be different. they served him all the drinks

damn phone

[Anda199208]

I'm a little teacup, short and stout.

[Fitz]

they served him 20 drinks before they cut him off

damn phone

And?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

And?

damn phone

hard to claim you didn't know he was drunk for the last10. evwn moreso for frequent flier. there will be repercussions from abc board. hevk last time i had a license in md was more than 30 years ago and even in pg county they woulda whacked ya. the bar had a good lawyer

[charby]

I remember a drunk driver homicide in the early 90's near Iowa City, IA where the family of the victim went so far as to sue Budweiser. They sued the bar, bartender, etc. I can remember if they won the suit against Budweiser, but they did win against the bar and bartender.

[Fitz]

Quick calculator reveals that over a 5 hour period (usual gig timeframe for me), it takes me 13 drinks before I'm legally impaired.

Add to that the fact that often legally impaired people still function OK, and it's easy for me to envision someone in a crowded bar gtting their hands on 20 drinks

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

yup it happens all the time. if you tip well and don't cause trouble you can get away with a lot. till you kill someone and then it stops being cool real fast. before i retired i drank a fifth of tequila in one bar in a night several times. it was a running joke. i didn't have a car or a license though and lisa the bartender drove me to rehab.

damn phone

[Fitz]

I used to routinely drink a bottle of soco in one night

Never drove after

Used to do a lot of other things too. Never endangered others as a result

No one is responsible for your over drinking but you, and if you get in a car after, no one is responsible but you


You missed the point of my post... I don't appear impaired until well past the arbitrary limits some places impose. Once they recognized his impairment, they cut him off

What, precisely, do you think they should have done?

Hard mode: no posting google links in lieu of an answer

Extra hard mode: no assumptions of facts not in evidence

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I used to routinely drink a bottle of soco in one night

Never drove after

Used to do a lot of other things too. Never endangered others as a result

No one is responsible for your over drinking but you, and if you get in a car after, no one is responsible but you


You missed the point of my post... I don't appear impaired until well past the arbitrary limits some places impose. Once they recognized his impairment, they cut him off

What, precisely, do you think they should have done?

Hard mode: no posting google links in lieu of an answer

Extra hard mode: no assumptions of facts not in evidence

not serve him 20 beers
thats gonna be hard to explain away and i know its gonna cost em big