Should Bars be held accountable?

I don't know all the laws concerning Bars, and the differences between each State, but I have heard numerous local stories that make me wonder. These two stick out in my mind:

1. In a nearby town where I live a man got wasted at the Bar. He then proceeded to go drunk driving, where he smashed into someone's front porch. The local bar had its liquor license taken away, and was unable to get it back for around a year. It was a bar/restaurant combo, so it managed to survive.

2. Around 15 years ago two men got drunk at a restaurant I work at (It's a bar/restaurant/hotel combo). They then proceeded to go to their rooms, and the stairway's/walkways to the rooms are all outside and on the second floor. I don’t know exactly what happened (I’ve heard many things: They hated each other, drug deal gone wrong, etc, etc) but one man through the other off the railing. The man who got thrown became a paraplegic, and his family sued the bar and won a 2.5 million dollar settlement.

My question is: Should Bars be held accountable for the actions of their patrons? Should Bars be forced to regulate the amount of consumption for their customers and cut them off before the ‘problematic’ point?

I've also heard stories like that... I even remember the one about the person being thrown from the 2nd floor...


I don't know the laws, but I think that bars should NOT be punished for something the drunks do. To me it's unfair.

I also work at a bar/rest. combo. I remember one of the bartenders telling me he had a bunch of assholes at the bar, and finally the bartender cut them off. Moments after they left, he called the other bars in town and told them not to serve the guys.

What if a person is cut off, but he goes somewhere else to drink, eather another bar, or buys some stuff from a store, and does something stupid, and the bar he was at hours before STILL be held accountable?

To me it's all bullshit. I beleve in "your responsable for your own actions" regardless of how your thinking.
They chose to get drunk, they chose to accept the consequences.

It's kinda like if someone was drunk and killed someone (driving or not) is that person going to get off only because he was drunk, and wasn't thinking right?

I am unsure of how things are done in the USA, but here we have a high tax on products which affect society negatively. The external costs of alcohol are indeed things like you have described, but the money gained from the tax goes into repairing the damages done.

This means that it is holding the manufacturers responsible, and taxing -them- due to higher prices.

It would be too hard for bars to regulate their patrons, everyone has a different cut off point, and not everyone is likely to be violent when drunk.

I just wish people would be more responsible.

The type of laws you are talking about are pretty common. I believe well over 40 of the states in the US have such legislation and wouldn't be surpirsed if you live in a city they will have something similiar.

The idea is that a bartender has a good view of his costumers. The link is that it is a public health concern. similar to lowering DUI blood alcohol. It is believed those selling intoxicating beverages have a public responsiblity and the state will hold them to that. Furthermore, they should take care to not sell alcohol to those already intoxicated.

Its a nanny state type thing at the end of the day.

If you want more articulate and varied takes on this, just type in Dram Shop in a search engine and I'm sure you'll get more than you would care to know.

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Originally posted by Metiao
To me it's all bullshit. I beleve in "your responsable for your own actions" regardless of how your thinking.
They chose to get drunk, they chose to accept the consequences.

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But the victim didn't choose to accept the consequences. I don’t think anyone would suggest that the drunk shouldn’t be held accountable. The problem is that the drunk often lacks the financial resources to remedy the harm that he or she has caused. The question then becomes whether the victim should be required to bear that cost alone.

If the industry (i.e., the bar) profited from serving the drunk past the point of reasonable care, then it is entirely fair that the industry should pay for the damage caused by the drunk instead of the victim. Drunks causing accidents is a cost to society of the business in which the industry is engaged. If the industry did not pay that cost, then it would be a hidden expense which society would be paying for the industry.

Not only is this approach fair, but it also makes sound economic sense. The industry can plan for the expense by purchasing liability insurance. The industry will be encouraged to practice reasonable care in who it serves by the varying cost of insurance premiums. Also, the industry can pass the cost of the premiums back to its customers...making the drunks ultimately responsible for paying the bill.

people who can't act with at least the basics of responsibility when drinking should simply not drink.
why make others pay for their stupidity and bad judgement?

To me this sounds like punishing a girl who was wearing very provocative clothes and some guy "couldn't resist" raping her.

I have been a bar/restaurant manager for the last 6 years, and it is true that bars (at least in Canada, and I assume the States) have to bear some of the responsibility for their patrons' actions after having consumed alcohol, esp. in regards to drunk driving.

The disclaimer here is that provided the establishment (i.e. me) offers to get the guest a cab or some other form of transportation, and the guest says no, then we have done our part, and the onus falls back on the guest to bear the responsibility for his/her actions. How you prove that you did this, though, i hope I never have to go to court and try it!

Anyway, I think it's retarded to make anybody other than the person who did the deed to bear responsiblity. In the case of a drunk driver, where does it end? Do you sue the distillery/brewery for making a product which results in inebriation? Car manufacturers for building products which harm others when you hit them with it? the government for providing licenses to establishments allowing people to consume alcoholic beverages?

But, it's a lawsuit happy society, in which people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, i guess. What can you do.

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Originally posted by Jozep
But, it's a lawsuit happy society, in which people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, i guess.

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It always amuses me when people throw out this line in support of their argument that they shouldn’t have to take responsibility for THEIR actions.

You are making money by helping people get drunk. Those drunks are then hurting people. Sure the drunks are responsible, but if you kept serving the drunk past the point when the drunk should have been cut off, then so are you. It is as simple as that: take responsibility for your actions.

Why should bars be allowed to make money doing something that is causing people harm and not have to pay the people who are harmed for the consequences of their business?

As to “where does it end?”, this is the classic question of proximate cause. In the end, its just a policy determination. The law holds people accountable for attenuated consequences of their actions to the extent that it is good public policy to do so. Here, it is pretty clear to me that it is good public policy to hold the bars accountable. As an industry profiting from the sale of alcohol, bars can pass on the liability costs to their customers just the same as any other cost of doing business. As compared to other alcohol industries, the bars are the industry that is best situated to exercise ordinary prudence and cut off their patrons before they reach a state of dangerous inebriation.

not everyone who goes to a bar gets drunk.
Again, people need to stop abandoning their own personal responsibility, and show at least the minimum amount of accountability.
If you can't drink without getting wasted and becoming an ass, then you shouldn't drink.

The bar should just have a breath analyzer at the serving point, and if you are over the limit for driving per that particular state's laws then you don't get served, whether you are actually driving or not.

Of course, that would eat into the bar's profits. Let's not pretend the bar is some innocent victim here, they make money by selling the most alcohol they can on any given night, or for serving large amounts of cheap alcohol while charging high covers.

As for the comment it's like the rape victim being blamed for wearing provocative clothing, no, it's nothing like that. That is an actual victim of a horrendous crime. It's more like the hooker that didn't know she was robbed until the check bounced.

this is one of those tough issues. imo, it's too many variables and puts too much of an onus on bartenders. especially when it's not just the bartenders serving drinks but also waitresses.

i live near a college town and can still remember drinking in my college days. you go to a bar near campus, one out of five people maybe drove there. some came in groups (and thus a driver), some walked, others used their bus passes. but a bartender and a waitress does not know this. they'd have to limit everyone and thus cut out a good bit of income. not to mention many times you drank BEFORE you went out.

and there's the fact that you may be planning all along to take a taxi home. but your server isn't going to know any of that.

then, you have someone who is well past the stage of should be driving a car but not be visibly intoxicated. especially if they drank somewhere else first. by the time someone is visibly drunk, it's too late, unless you're going to force coffee down their throats for the next several hours. you cut them off, so what? they are still drunk.

my brother is a bartender and he does deal with this some. usually it's by keeping track of how many actual liquor drinks he served someone per hour over time. but, again this can be completely out the window if the person came in intoxicated or went out to their car and smoked a joint before taking off (this actually happened, he totalled several parked cars).

but you try tracking that on a busy night when you're serving dozens of people coming and going, buying drinks for their friends and not themselves...

you really want to stop drinking and driving, you put the breathanalyzer in the car. over the limit, car doesnt start.

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Originally posted by pormis
imo, it's too many variables and puts too much of an onus on bartenders.

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I think what you are missing is that the bar has to be proven to have done something wrong to be held liable.

My knowledge of this area of law is sparse. However, typically for a victim to recover against a bar under a Dram Shop Act, the victim must prove that the alcohol providers served someone who was either under age or who they knew was intoxicated. The alternative to a Dram Shop Act would be to sue the bar under general negligence. Again, the victim would have to prove, among other things, that the bar acted unreasonably in serving alcohol to the drunk. This means that the victim will have to prove something along the lines of the bar didn’t properly train its staff, the drunk was visibly intoxicated or the bar served the drunk an excessive number of drinks. The bar shouldn’t end up being liable as long as it acts reasonably.

Of course, even the most prudent bar likely may still have to face a frivolous suit. As mentioned, however, the bar can protect itself against this risk by purchasing insurance. Once again, this is simply a cost of doing business that the bar can pass along to its customers.

Here in Manitoba, Canada, we've got some of the toughest drinking and driving laws. The national limit is .008, but if you get caught with .005 on the breath test, you will be charged, because Manitoba passed legislation that allows police to charge people who blow at .005 and over. Drinks here used to be cheap like borscht. $0.25 for a glass of draft, $0.75 for a half pitcher, and $1.25 for a pitcher. Around 4 years ago, a university student was out drinking. He got rather intoxicated. The bar was just off one of the University campus', which happened to be not far from one of the few rivers that runs through the city. The guy, quite drunk, staggered home from the bar. Unfortunately, because of his state of inebriation, he slipped when he was walking along the river bank on the way home, and drowned. He was missing for two weeks. When they finally found him, and conducted the investigation, the city and province took another look at the drink prices. After about 6mths of discussions, they instituted a minimum drink price of $2.25. If I remember right, the fellow's parents were going to sue the bar for allowing him to walk out without verifying that he was in reasonable shape to 1)get home on his own, 2)have friends who could make sure he'd get home, and 3)for not calling a cab if none of the above were available. He was 21yrs old, in his third and final year of psychology(I think).

So, yeah. I say if they can prove that the bar staff didn't at least made an -reasonable- attempt to have the person arrive home safely, then yeah, go ahead and charge/sue/fine/shut down the place.

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Originally posted by Damieux

If the industry (i.e., the bar) profited from serving the drunk past the point of reasonable care, then it is entirely fair that the industry should pay for the damage caused by the drunk instead of the victim.

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What exactly is 'reasonable care'? That is a very loose term considering how greatly the effects of alcohol vary between individuals. However, lets disregard the variations and assume that alcohol affects everyone at the same rate. At what point then do you cut your patrons off?

No, I see no reason to force bartenders to act like babysitters. A bar is not a day care. Alcohol has been around for ages and its proficiency in altering the decision-making ability of those whom it intoxicates is common knowledge. A man who walks into a bar and consumes these intoxicants does so with the knowledge and intent of losing his coherent reasoning. Whether he consumes one beverage, or twenty-five, it simply does not matter. His following actions are his and his alone, and should be treated as such.

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[i]Orignally posted by Vidare[/]

After about 6mths of discussions, they instituted a minimum drink price of $2.25. If I remember right, the fellow's parents were going to sue the bar for allowing him to walk out without verifying that he was in reasonable shape to 1)get home on his own, 2)have friends who could make sure he'd get home, and 3)for not calling a cab if none of the above were available. He was 21yrs old, in his third and final year of psychology(I think).

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How did the Bar become responsible for your transportation?

These are the types of things he should have planned for -before-he went out drinking. If he was expecting to get hammered at the Bar, he should have aquired himself a DA (Designated Angel) to ensure that he did nothing destructive while intoxicated and made sure he found his way back home safely. Otherwise, in my opinion, his death is his own fault.

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Originally posted by Azoryn
What exactly is 'reasonable care'? That is a very loose term considering how greatly the effects of alcohol vary between individuals.

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That is a term that haunts the legal profession, law students, and tort classes all over the country. It's a legal term of art that means something very specific. It is the quintessential requirement for almost any and every negligence cause of action, that the person being sued acted as a reasonable prudent person and/or used reasonable care.

On a side note, if you toss out reasonable care you come up with strict liability, which in my opinion sucks.

As I see it, while I am a big advocate of people taking care of themselves and taking responsibility for themselves, when you enter the alcohol-service areas of the hospitality industry, you need to take some precautions. You are dealing with mind-altering substances, and you have a duty of care to those who do the serving, and those who are served.

I don't know about the States, but in Australia it is a heavily policed law that you may not serve alcohol to someone who is already intoxicated. How drunk is too drunk? I don't know, however as I don't serve alcohol, or run an establishment that does, I don't need to know. If a barman is unable to tell if someone is too drunk to serve alcohol to, then they shouldn't be a barman.

Barmen are expected to always err on the side of safety. How many multi-million dollar lawsuits have you heard about because a barman refused to serve someone they believed to be intoxicated more alcohol? They have that right, they have that responsibility, and should stand by it firmly.

If there is a fight in a bar or club, and someone is very seriously injured, the security for that bar or club with find themselves in a very bad position. That's because it's their responsibility to not let in anyone they believe to be of a violent nature, and to eject anyone that is causing problems in this respect.

Now, if someone is a bit pissed, decides to drive, and gets themselves smashed up, I most certainly agree that it's no-ones problem but their own (assuming they caused the accident), however that's rarely the case when you're talking about law suits against bars. Generally it's (as was previously stated) because the person was continually served alcohol beyond the point of their intoxication, which as I said (in regards to Australia at least) is a SERIOUS crime on behalf of the bar, and can (and often does) result in the loss of license (not something cheaply attained) and a heavy fine (I believe in the vicinity of $50,000).

I agree that people need to take responsibility for their actions, however it is a mind-altering substance, and one provided for a charge by bars, and therefore they most definitely have the responsibility to not serve beyond a point of intoxication, and if they believe someone to be incapable of driving, they have a duty of care to the general public and their patron(s) to attempt to provide another option for the intoxicated patron.

Dol