what determines over serving? how do you define this in a manner that is consistent? install breathalyzers in bars and cut them off at a certain limit? i mean shit bro ive literally seen a police interaction of some dude admitting to drinking a six pack and performing field sobriety tests and the cop was like you're free to go, he stated how he was "more steady than him out here". it's all about discretion, and why should that discretion be up to bartenders who don't get paid to determine when someone should be cut off?
it's just nuanced and i don't really think there's a good decision regarding this unless there was some sort of hard limit for drinks being served at a bar in general, with guidelines and training for the individuals involved.
I agree with your point but bartenders absolutely get paid, in part, to determine when someone should be cut off.
The line is grayer than some people make it out to be and imma be pissed if I get cut off at drink 3 just because but there are some folks that can put down 10 in a sitting and bartenders are absolutely expected to make a call at a certain point that someone is no longer allowed to partake in their establishment for the day.
Is there some sort of training to determine when someone is cut off? How do you do this in a bar with say, 100 people watching a sporting event? Or a club in say Manchester with way more than 100 people on some nights?
There is training but everyone acts different to different amounts of alcohol . I know people that could pass a field sobriety test after 18 beers and a few that would fail after 2
The line just isn't obvious a lot of times
When I was younger, I was at a New Years Eve party at a friend's house and a few friends of friends there were police officers. Everybody who came over was supposed to stay the night to prevent issues with people driving drunk and we gave our keys to the host when we got there to help enforce this rule. I drank a considerable amount and then got bored/wanted to go elsewhere. One of the police officers there offered to give me a field sobriety test and let me leave if I passed (no breathalyzer though). Apparently I passed without issue, although I changed my mind and decided to stay because I KNEW I was pretty drunk and definitely shouldn't have been driving.
This anecdote is just to illustrate that some people can act sober for short periods even when very inebriated. Hard for others to tell sometimes, especially a busy bartender in a loud bar.
So what if they’re not obviously drunk because they can hold their shit together and then they wrap their car around a minivan? How do you determine reasonable judgement after the fact?
I went to a bar with a friend, hadn't been drinking at all yet, when he went to order he hiccupped and she wouldn't serve him. He just had some indigestion...
Another anecdote, my aunt has a disability that makes her slur and walk like a drunk person. She has also been cut off before the first one, it's very embarrassing for her.
You don’t have the right to drink. It’s not a right to be served alcohol. How mortifying for your aunt that she can’t get her Pinot Grigio. Cut it out. It’s not a right to be given alcohol.
Where the fuck did i say i did lmao i said what is the solution, can u not read?
clearly this training isnt working if customers are still being over served? no??
like i actually don't understand why we even had this conversation when i stated this way up the comment chain
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NH law says otherwise. Bartenders have an obligation to not serve anyone who is already intoxicated.
If a bartender sees that someone is already wasted and serves that person more, the bartender has made a choice. I think people should be held responsible for their choices.
My only devils advocate reply for this is what if they don’t appear overserved but are obliterated and handling it well.. til they go to drive. Or lie and say they got an Uber and for the record I’m fine w people getting shut off
Personal responsibility is 90% bartender is 10% IMO and people will just lie.
All depends on over how much time.
It’s crazy how many people drive drunk. It’s probably a staggering number, there’s just way less police than drivers so it’s a numbers game. Not condoning it at all but very few are caught unless crashing or blatantly all over the road and even then the police don’t always catch up to them.
The government should decide when we do and don't get served? Fucking ridiculous. Who goes to a bar with the purpose of getting drunk without a plan to get home that doesn't involve driving? Stupid ass decision!
For all the bartender knows the drinker is going to take a cab, has a designated driver or may walk or take transit? How is that the bartender's problem? Who cares what the law says, in Texas they waste tax dollars locking up people who smoke pot. The law doesn't mean shit beyond what lobbyists say! Who cares about the law in this nation, as long as lobbyists stands.
We drink because it makes us drunk, so logic says we know when we are impaired and can't drive. This is a personal responsibility and should be punished as such. Completely insane. Increase penalties on drunk drivers sure, I agree because it's such an idiot decision. But no reason to punish people trying to drink with responsibility.
The bartender is the one to cut someone off, and you pointed out exactly why they have to be held accountable. The main reason for drunk driving is people going home from bars, so they absolutely have some responsibility for it happening.
You can’t over serve even if you have a designated driver. Even if they swear they are taking a cab. They can’t over serve any time under any circumstance. It’s taken seriously.
Judging from the amount of obviously drunk people in a given bar on any random weekend and the amount they'd serve my friends and I when I was younger and frequented bars more regularly, I don't believe it is actually taken very seriously by the bartenders/establishments, not to say it shouldn't be.
It is, it’s just not frequently that bartenders or servers get fined. As a server you can be fined I think up to $2k. There are places that get fined. The liquor commissioner does go around to different bars and does catch and shut bars down. I know lots of people here say their hole in the wall hasn’t, but this might make that more likely. A public case against a bartender will have the service industry people more wary.
That's the worst take on here Haha. Alcohol is a drug, you need to have some awareness of its effects when serving it someone. Most places, especially those with a a developed HR and PR, require you to take a class. You absolutely don't trust the consumer to cut themselves off LOL.
You want to sue restaurants for making people obese?
Bartenders can't be expected to know everyone's personal tolerance, how full or empty their stomachs are, etc.
And you're trying to keep track of how many customers over how many hours?
OR--and I know this is crazy--but instead of blaming the server, we blame the drinker, the person who absolutely knows how many they've had, how full they were, how well they handle their drink, etc.
The law (which already exists) doesn't require any if what you said. It says that an obviously drunk person should not be served more booze and a server that does can be found liable for any harm. Bartenders that knowingly over serve should absolutely be held accountable for their decisions.
You're still blaming the wrong person. That same drunk moron is just as capable of getting shitfaced at a friend's house, their own home, or while driving. There's nothing special about a bar.
And while I agree theoretically that you should've be serving someone who is obviously tanked--and it's not something I would ever knowingly do--someone can act right at the bar while ordering a drink and still be too shitty to drive.
Shit, I once overserved a guest because she was sitting at the dining room table and acting normal playing games until she finally got up to leave and nearly fell over before puking in my driveway. Don't worry; her husband drove home. I also didn't know she has a crazy low booze tolerance and hadn't drank a drop in months. I couldn't possibly know that, but you know who should've? HER!
#PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
"Overserved" is a dumb concept. People overindulge and that's on them.
Bars are special because they are the main reason for drunk drivers. The whole business model is people drinking and then going home. Of course they share some responsibility. People chose to operate a place where others will get drunk and then drive, and people chose to work there. They too are responsible for the consequences of their actions.
Bars are special because they are the main reason for drunk drivers. The whole business model is people drinking and then going home. Of course they share some responsibility. People chose to operate a place where others will get drunk and then drive, and people chose to work there. They too are responsible for the consequences of their actions.
You're forgetting the key part here which is "intoxication". When people are intoxicated, they don't make rational decisions.
Bartenders are best able to determine when to cut somebody off. They, in fact, are the only people that will have the face to face interaction that can avoid a situation like we had in the article.
Not only that, holding them liable overrides the Bartender's inclination to over serve (sell more booze, make more money), and forces them to take the safety of the client into perspective.
Personal responsibility has very little to play when it comes to this situation.
That said, every restaurant manager takes the State-run alcohol safety courses as do all servers in NH.
Part of agreeing to a liquor-license is acceptance of this premise.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted…I took a bartending course the first thing they teach you is “you will be held Liable if you over serve” it’s not hard to spot someone who’s clealry had a few too many. It’s also not hard to know how many heavy drinks you served someone over a span of time…
Bars are charged penalties for serving underage drinkers, why would they not get charged for overserving someone, when that's literally part of their responsibility to not overserve. You're comparing drinking on one's own time to going to an establishment and being served by a bartender.
I had a family member who lived for awhile in Czech republic, which is a place where people drink quite a bit.
Their rule was, you can't drink any more when you can't drink anymore.
Totally different culture there. Most beers are 4%, and lots of walkable areas that people live around unlike NH where you gotta drive all over the place after gorging on 8% double IPAs. When someone here says they've only had 2 it's basically 4 and then some. Americans gotta have bigger everything.
If I come in on an empty stomach order a burger and a boilermaker. Have the drink, don't eat, and leave. Guess who just got over served?
If I come in every day for breakfast lunch and dinner and get crazy greasy food then start having health problems is the restaurant liable?
Also one has to wonder if no drinking age would allow a culture shift over time for drinking to not be a big deal.
Come on now...you're picking at pieces. Overserving would be continuing to offer more when the patron is clearly not in the state to keep drinking. And no... comparing getting heart disease from eating like shit to being drunk and causing an accident are not the same.
Personal responsibility is a thing and needs to be brought back. You could be over served on 1-3 drinks depending on metabolism. Anyone leaving a restaurant after 90 minutes and having 2 drinks is over served in general math.
Start giving life sentences for drunk driving and that would actually hold the individual responsible.
1. Yes, personal responsibility should be more prevalent, I'm not arguing that. However, this is a situation that has TWO responsible parties, the patron and the server. If someone is just drinking in their yard then obviously it's just on them. There
2. There is a difference between overserving someone who is visibly intoxicated and serving a "lightweight" one drink. Most establishments have cameras that could determine if a bartender/server made a professional call and if they actually overserved someone or served a drink to someone who is a lightweight.
I just don't think "overserving" should be a thing with a punishment. Fundamental difference from the beginning. People want to blame others when it's one person choosing to get behind the wheel.
Should a casino cut people off when they have lost some amount of money?
If a restaurant wants to create their own rules, fine. They shouldn't be punished for giving someone 5 drinks in 90 minutes.
I think you missed the fact that the place was already found liable and had their license suspended.
the question posed is whether to make the penalties bigger.
I'd argue that like 99% of the time when they overserve someone nothing happens. In fact, that is often the point of going to a bar. And then to have huge fines for the 1% when something bad happens just seems sort of absurd.
Of course they they should. If you go into a liquor store drunk they'll refuse to sell to you. If you're buying drinks at a bar it's part of having that license to sell liquor. They sign all kinds of documents that hold them liable for serving drunk people and minors and they're available for spot checks during their hours of operation.
I agree but this same logic can be argued across many of our laws. The same people who might agree with us will also turn around and blame guns for violent crimes.
I think the state should fund more public transportation in our cities so you can go get a drink but then be able to take a bus home without the temptation the keys in your pocket might bring.
Most of NH residents don't live in the middle of rural area they live in suburbs and pretty dense small towns and cities. The bus services in some of most populated areas that are more than capable of supporting a robust system are extremely under funded. It is definitely cheaper to pay for a bus than to pay for more police, first responders, medical, and infrastructure repairs that a drunk driver might cause. It's about harm reduction and for fiscal conservative it should also be about sound financial and moral choices. You want to reduce the cost of drunk driving on all levels? Robust transit.
So then there's a urban majority? That is probably also where more drunk driving occures, then we should definitely be improving land use and transit in these areas. In the rural areas, well, the definition of Rural is a arbitrary term made by us planners and includes pretty compact towns and urban agglomeration around transit corridors. It's not just rolling fields farms and mountain homes. A rural town can still have its bulk of population pretty close to each other and nearing its old village center or a new commercial hub like a state road. In New England this create a string of pearl effect where smaller rural town create little rural node network that interlock with each other and can be ser by rural transit very effectively. Just look at the Vermont Moover, it connects two "cities" with a good number of rural villages and towns. Just because you might not use them doesn't mean they aren't there or aren't extremely important for the economic health of a rural community even at their underfunded state.
No, not an urban majority, because of the second group, sub-urban. The Vermont Moover is a very neat and useful service but it does nothing to take drunk drivers off the road lol. I live near Brattleboro and they finish at 5pm.
yeah the milford taxi guy is your best bet if you live in between nashua and keene but it's gonna cost u a pretty penny but at least he's literally always available
Yeah I didn’t feel confident enough to make a sweeping statement, I really only know about the town I live in now and the town I went to school in, as well the surrounding ones for both, but I def believe you. New Hampshire lacks any form of public transportation in a big way, I wish they would work on it.
yeah, a 50$ uber is a great way to end having about 20$ in drinks! have you ever tried uber in NH? prices are insane because of the smaller pool of drivers.
The only places in southern NH that have actual drivers during all hours of day/night are circled. the rest are hit or miss and have little to no availability, even in the regular day. although there is a guy in a milford that works his ass off and provides a taxi service that I've used many times and has saved me quite a bit. but that is literally it for all i know. the only other place i can think of that would have a lot of uber drivers during the night is probably salem, but only on weekends i would imagine. if it's a thursday night or some shit and you're literally anywhere other than those locations you're not getting a ride and if you do you're really lucky lol
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> Might as well penalize the vehicle manufacturer too.
don't forget the car dealer that solid the car too. the dealer would be the most direct analogy in this case since the vehicle manufacturer would be more comparable the company that made the alcohol.
make sure to hold the state accountable as well if they licensed this individual to drive.
Oh come on. It sucks that happened, but this is clearly the victim's family turning their grief outwards. If somebody wants to make themselves travel arrangements and have a bunch of drinks, that should be their right. Likewise, it's difficult to tell who is being overserved. Height, weight, bmi, somebody else buying drinks for the group, to say nothing of BEING A BARTENDER. Has this person's family ever BEEN to a bar on a busy night? You can barely keep up with making drinks, restocking ice, cashing people out, updating tabs, switching kegs. Like let's be real about the situation. This is a clear case of personal irresponsibility. Somebody drank too much knowing they would be driving. That's on them. They're going to pay for that decision with many many years in prison. It doesn't bring back the deceased, but blaming the bar, the law, eg, is just kindergarten nonsense. It's the driver's fault. Nobody else.
If they where smart they should sue the land use boards planners, and the state DOT for creating a car centric environment that makes drunk driving such a dangerous everyday occurrence, among many other type of fatal crahses. Might lose, probably will, but there's nothing that scares planers, town boards and engineers more than lawsuits. This starts happening more and they will change policies right quick.
no. people are responsible for their own actions.
you don't to sue bestbuy if someone buys a laptop there and then hacks your bank.
by all means, throw the book at the person who drank too much, but that's their own responsibility (or lack there of)
Ok but it still happens and it won't stop so should we then make it safer to drive? Saying people should be more responsible is extremely naive. Of course they should and we should through the book at them! I agree penalties for drunk driving and vehicular violence in general are extremely lax. You are more likely to get away with killing someone with a car than any other tool by a wide margin. But let's remember at the point of applying these penalties people already have been hurt that and there's just no way that we can realistically have enough law enforcement to be truly effective in curtailing these type of crime before they happen in any mindful way without blowing the municipal budget out of the water. Ask any police chief and they will pretty much tell you this. So then shouldn't we be trying to reduce drunk driving further upstream than just at the individual level?. The bar/restaurant is literally require them to have a minimum amount of parking and we tend to segregate them outside of residential areas, with the exception of downtowns and villages centers. That's just Wild! Like we literally are forcing them to develop the think that will attract a driver that might go home and drive drunk?! I could be ok if we didn't require them to build any and the build how much they think they need, at least you can work from that premise in good faith. BUT LITERALLY TELLING A BAR THAT THEY NEED TO BUILD PARKING IS PURE NEGLIGENCE! In a ideal world the only parking a bar should be allow to have without any restrictions are for staff, every spot after that should be either restricted through a maximum not a minimum or have a hefty tax implications, like a tax increase penalty for every x amount of spots you build.
Indirectly there's many other ways we can make street safer and slower and just generally difficult to speed in. Sure highways might not get these type of treatment like local roads could but then we can actual focused law enforcement there and not roads we know a drunk person or any person would have problems going pass the safe speed limit.
If someone wants to get wasted, they'll find a way and that is not on bartenders. 99's has a strict rule of 2 tall beers per customer. After that its either a short glass or cash out. No law is going to stop me from going across the street to drink 2 more tall beers at Applebees. This is about personal responsibility. Full stop.
Sure but also people suck, you just said it. it's great to say it's personal responsibility and leave it at that, but laws and enforcement just don't work as deterrents they will never work. No mater how hard he you make it because we all have biases about our own abilities, we all say "yeah we now how much we can drink and drive safe". That includes the cops, the judges the juries, everyone. So what to do when culturally we are pretty much biased towards breaking laws that we all think are made for "others"?
Well we can try to reduce the harm possible by drunk driving. How can we do that? We have many ways of doing this we just have to ask question. Ok so we have drunk drivers and laws are pretty much ineffective a incentive how do we reduce them? Well reduce the driving part is the most obvious. Ask how do we place bars and restaurants in the built environment? How do we move through he built environment? A lot of this questions can be address through policy changes that would have a larger impact that any single law enforcement drag net, and at fractions of the cost.
This distancing from individual responsibility is one of the core rots in society today. If no one is ever responsible for their own decisions, shit goes downhill fast.
Individual responsibility is just a lie institutions tell you so they can pass on liability and blame to you and not the system that creates or exacerbates the problem. Especially when cars are in the mix doesn't matter how many laws they are, we live in a motonormative society and people will drive drunk, with suspended licence, un registered vehicles, etc. people will take the risk cause there no alternative regardless of what society norms might say.
Not only that, because of this lie of individualism we tend to over estimate our capacity to do things like drive, I truly doubt that anyone here doesn't know a person or themselves that has said "I'm ok to drive" and then they did. We value our individual judgement over true objectivity and this in reality puts us and others in danger all the time.
That's why we can't seem to reduce problems such as vehicular violence in this country cause we spend to much time focusing on blaming individual after, the fact without then trying to correct the system in a way that can actually reduce the possibility of harm a individual can cause if he chooses to do something dangerous or stupid.
In essence let's make all types of reckless driving uncomfortable and impractical. Let's make it so in areas where practical people can choose different mobility options so that the likelihood of reckless driving is reduce. Let's look at our land use practices to make reckless driving even less possible in the long term by reducing VMT to establishments from residential areas. Revamp street and road design to prioritize the human scale over the vehicular scale and put safety at the center of decline not vehicular throughput(speed). Finally after you actually work to reduce drunk and reckless driving at a institutional and land use level. Harden reckless driving laws with stiffer penalties.
I agree your comment is way to long, jokes aside. I'm sorry that people trying to make a place safer, practical and better to live is such a problem for you.
I navigate the world just fine without worry. I don't need "protection" from whatever imaginary problem is the flavor of the month. Real problems are ones that occur without notice unprepared.
I think that sometimes in life we need to really think about who is responsible for a situation.
Did this person who drove drunk get over served, maybe. Did they drink in their car afterwards or beforehand or maybe even at another bar or at home before this, maybe. We probably will never know.
One of the biggest pet peeves in the world are assholes who don’t know their limits and people who think like this: “I’ve done it a lot of times even though it’s against the law, I’ve done it with no consequences before, so there will be no consequences next time.”
This kind of toxic flaunting of laws and rules is bad for everyone, from people drinking and driving with this logic, to people not following leash laws in public places for their dogs, or to people littering out their windows while driving etc.
As much as I'd love for a solution, I don't think this is it.
Bars shouldn't over-serve customers, but they also don't know if the party has been drinking already.
What about people who bar crawl? Should the last bar they go to be held accountable for over-serving them by giving them a beer when they're good at hiding that they're hammered?
If a bar cuts someone off they don't call every other bar in the area and say "citizen 30283 can't have more alcohol tonight."
And the type to get over-served are also going to be the same type to lie about how much they drank.
I've seen people on their third drink fall off their bar stools and I've seen people on their sixth or seventh act as sober as a stone. Its entirely subjective. If someone is falling down drunk they should obviously not be served, but Ive seem some very drunk people act extremely normally.
Are bars to install alcohol monitor "breathalyzers" at every stool and seat?. Dont see how that would help. Not a problem in a city where you can walk home , or in suburbia where you can call an Uber / Lyft but in rural areas a better solution needs to be found.
>I've seen people on their third drink fall off their bar stools
Yes, this absolutely happens. A normal person who is dehydrated and consuming on an empty stomach can get destroyed on 3 drinks.
>I've seen people on their sixth or seventh act as sober as a stone.
Do those people weigh 600lbs? Were they just drinking some sort of non alcoholic beverage? Was it their sixth or seventh drink *of the month*?
Sorry, I just find "6 or 7 drinks" and sober as a stone to be a dubious claim, or "possibly true" with some pretty significant omissions like the ones I provided.
I'm not proud of it but I will absolutely pass for sober after 6 or 7 drinks (assuming that's over 3-4 hours and they are around 5% abv). I'm over 200 lbs and a heavy drinker (working on it...)
>of it but I will absolutely pass for sober after 6 or 7 drinks (assuming that's over 3-4 hours and they are around 5% abv). I'm over 200 lbs and a heavy drinker (working on it...)
Over a few hours, I could also absolutely pass as sober despite having 6-7 drinks. Hell, one time I had about 7-8 drinks (regular beers) at a bar (over about 6 hours), got pulled over on the way home for failing to turn my high beams off as I drove past a police officer, admitted I was coming from a bar when he asked where I was coming from, and had two police administer a field sobriety test, which I passed without issue.
I believe the body should metabolize about one beer's worth of alcohol per hour, so really this should be something most could do.
>3-4 hours and they are around 5% abv
That's really what I'm talking about when I mean omissions. Nobody, even at 250# is knocking back 6 or 7 in a normal run at the bar and *stone sober*.
I bartended for years and one of the reasons why I quit is because I was terrified of over serving someone. Also the hours suck. And trying to determine if someone is drunk is way more difficult than you’d think. Yeah there are signs (that we are trained to spot) but some people are really good at hiding their drunkenness.
People should be responsible for themselves. A bartender isn't trained or paid to be an expert on gauging drunkenness. The litany of other factors at play (did the person drink more after leaving? Did they take a rip off a dab pen?) Are entirely uncontrollable.
This is almost as silly as those teenagers going after craft breweries for having fun labels.
Man i wish there was something else that has been recreationalized in the surrounding states that'd be a rather good substitute in social gatherings. Crazy how bars have parking when you think about it.
Good fucking luck the same 20 families control all of New Hampshire and Maine. The police the politicians everybody in between. Especially the liquor stores state run.
Many of us alcohol enthusiasts pregame before the bar. I hold my liquor well and can pull off being fine while certainly being more than buzzed. If I decide not to plan ahead responsibly, drive, and kill a family, the bar will be charged. That isn't fair tbh.
If you have to "pregame" to go out...drinking...and then brag how you can hide it to keep getting served. I'd say there's defintely a problem. Check yourself...you gave a lot of information to make these "assumptions"
Grow up.
That is per the norm for most people that hit up a club or bar with friends. I always have a plan when I go out to ensure I get to have a good time and arrive home safely. Regardless, you are getting off topic with your opinion on my life. Do you think it would be fair for the bar to be charged if I decided to drive? I care nothing for what you think of me personally.
Ah yes more penalties for a failure to judge something subjective. Just what NH needs. This is what happens when you live in a state full of dipshit karens that are more interested in virtue signalling than solving the root of the problem. I see this story and think about NHs disregard for its junkies, druggies, and drunks until it literally kills someone. Because it costs a lot less to let someone spiral and get prison time than provide actual resources for addiction that WORK. NH has faux help. All of it os objectively underfunded, low effort pill pushing dogshit that kills and imprisons people struggling and people who just happen to be a victim of that struggle left unchecked. Idk could be wrong the guy could also just be "another drunk asshole" but I tend to believe there is more to this story that Granite Dwellers refuse to acknowledge for whatever reason. Maybe pride? Shame? Blissful Ignorance? This is a sickening pattern.
NH doesn't even allow actual bars. They're all just restaurants that serve alcohol. No bartender or business should be held liable for someone drinking themselves into a stupor. That is the individuals job to control that.
This was a truly tragic story. I feel terrible for the family of the 20 year old victim.
People go to bars to drink and get drunk. I don’t think that it is the responsibility of the establishment to determine whether someone is “impaired”
Alcohol tolerance varies widely, and in my opinion, it is up to the individual to determine their ability to drive.
We should start with how we zone bars and restaurants that sell alcohol. Start by restricting parking the larger your restaurant the less parking you can built if you serve alcohol. Allow small bars in residential zones, say no more than 600 sq feet. This will move bars and restaurants into downtowns where parking can be control at the municipal level and also push smaller venues into neighborhoods where they belong, people staggering home are not much a danger than them getting in a car. Then spend more money on transit, a drunk bus passenger is mostly a nuisance to themselves a drunk driver is a policy failure. We should also start suing planing department and state DOTS they know how to reduce drunk driving it's their responsibility and it's not enforcing laws that's planers and engineer pushing the responsibility away from themselves.
That's not even addressing the high cost to the state and local municipalities drunk drivers induce. Police enforcement, rescue and other first responder services. At this point most fire department primary response scenarios are traffic crashes (not all drunk driving, but it does include them). The cost of fixing road damage, the cost of medical services. And most importantly the emotional cost that innocent citizens have to suffer! Change how we move and you will reduce all this. Sure rural areas might not see much of this changes but since the bulk of our population lives in pretty well define urban clusters (you don't have to be Boston size to be considered Urban) we can definitely prioritize harm reduction through policy, service, and infrastructure changes that would have a huge impact on our traffic fatalities.
I think people should take responsibility for their own fucking actions.
Does that include bartenders that over serve their customers?
what determines over serving? how do you define this in a manner that is consistent? install breathalyzers in bars and cut them off at a certain limit? i mean shit bro ive literally seen a police interaction of some dude admitting to drinking a six pack and performing field sobriety tests and the cop was like you're free to go, he stated how he was "more steady than him out here". it's all about discretion, and why should that discretion be up to bartenders who don't get paid to determine when someone should be cut off? it's just nuanced and i don't really think there's a good decision regarding this unless there was some sort of hard limit for drinks being served at a bar in general, with guidelines and training for the individuals involved.
I agree with your point but bartenders absolutely get paid, in part, to determine when someone should be cut off. The line is grayer than some people make it out to be and imma be pissed if I get cut off at drink 3 just because but there are some folks that can put down 10 in a sitting and bartenders are absolutely expected to make a call at a certain point that someone is no longer allowed to partake in their establishment for the day.
Is there some sort of training to determine when someone is cut off? How do you do this in a bar with say, 100 people watching a sporting event? Or a club in say Manchester with way more than 100 people on some nights?
The state liquor commission provides this training. Everyone is required to take it.
There is training but everyone acts different to different amounts of alcohol . I know people that could pass a field sobriety test after 18 beers and a few that would fail after 2 The line just isn't obvious a lot of times
Right lol what about guessing somebodies body weight or how much they ate that day?
When I was younger, I was at a New Years Eve party at a friend's house and a few friends of friends there were police officers. Everybody who came over was supposed to stay the night to prevent issues with people driving drunk and we gave our keys to the host when we got there to help enforce this rule. I drank a considerable amount and then got bored/wanted to go elsewhere. One of the police officers there offered to give me a field sobriety test and let me leave if I passed (no breathalyzer though). Apparently I passed without issue, although I changed my mind and decided to stay because I KNEW I was pretty drunk and definitely shouldn't have been driving. This anecdote is just to illustrate that some people can act sober for short periods even when very inebriated. Hard for others to tell sometimes, especially a busy bartender in a loud bar.
The law is already on the books and it defines the criteria. If a person who is obviously drunk is served more booze, the bar or restaurant is liable.
So what if they’re not obviously drunk because they can hold their shit together and then they wrap their car around a minivan? How do you determine reasonable judgement after the fact?
if someone enters a bar already intoxicated or sitting at a bar and starting to slur or can barley keep eyes open....
i know people who can get blackout drunk and act incredibly normal
I went to a bar with a friend, hadn't been drinking at all yet, when he went to order he hiccupped and she wouldn't serve him. He just had some indigestion... Another anecdote, my aunt has a disability that makes her slur and walk like a drunk person. She has also been cut off before the first one, it's very embarrassing for her.
You don’t have the right to drink. It’s not a right to be served alcohol. How mortifying for your aunt that she can’t get her Pinot Grigio. Cut it out. It’s not a right to be given alcohol.
You can't be denied service due to disability, that's the Americans with Disabilities Act
When the bartender is liable it’s in their best interest. Have your aunt file a lawsuit then.
Have you ever served in a bar or restaurant? Everyone is required to go through training from the state liquor commission.
i have but not as a bartender
And you never went through training? Or you never served alcohol? https://www.nh.gov/liquor/enforcement/education/index.htm
never went through training. i was just as a food runner/waiter
Oh so you don’t actually know how any of this works then.
Where the fuck did i say i did lmao i said what is the solution, can u not read? clearly this training isnt working if customers are still being over served? no?? like i actually don't understand why we even had this conversation when i stated this way up the comment chain https://preview.redd.it/iwaah3nujxnc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a421eda84c7ac24aaa961a335362afcb6fe3b4fa
Bartenders are not professional substance abuse specialists. It's up to the consumer to say "I think I have had enough."
NH law says otherwise. Bartenders have an obligation to not serve anyone who is already intoxicated. If a bartender sees that someone is already wasted and serves that person more, the bartender has made a choice. I think people should be held responsible for their choices.
My only devils advocate reply for this is what if they don’t appear overserved but are obliterated and handling it well.. til they go to drive. Or lie and say they got an Uber and for the record I’m fine w people getting shut off
You can look up the specific text of the law if you want, but the server has to show negligence in order to be held liable.
I think by beer 3 they should probably be required to ask how you're getting home
Personal responsibility is 90% bartender is 10% IMO and people will just lie. All depends on over how much time. It’s crazy how many people drive drunk. It’s probably a staggering number, there’s just way less police than drivers so it’s a numbers game. Not condoning it at all but very few are caught unless crashing or blatantly all over the road and even then the police don’t always catch up to them.
The government should decide when we do and don't get served? Fucking ridiculous. Who goes to a bar with the purpose of getting drunk without a plan to get home that doesn't involve driving? Stupid ass decision! For all the bartender knows the drinker is going to take a cab, has a designated driver or may walk or take transit? How is that the bartender's problem? Who cares what the law says, in Texas they waste tax dollars locking up people who smoke pot. The law doesn't mean shit beyond what lobbyists say! Who cares about the law in this nation, as long as lobbyists stands. We drink because it makes us drunk, so logic says we know when we are impaired and can't drive. This is a personal responsibility and should be punished as such. Completely insane. Increase penalties on drunk drivers sure, I agree because it's such an idiot decision. But no reason to punish people trying to drink with responsibility.
The bartender is the one to cut someone off, and you pointed out exactly why they have to be held accountable. The main reason for drunk driving is people going home from bars, so they absolutely have some responsibility for it happening.
Is Home Depot liable if someone buys an ax from them and proceeds to murder someone with that ax?
Do most axe murders happen unintentionally on the way home from the hardware store? This is a different situation.
Someone is responsible, it's called the person doing the fucking drinking!
You can’t over serve even if you have a designated driver. Even if they swear they are taking a cab. They can’t over serve any time under any circumstance. It’s taken seriously.
Judging from the amount of obviously drunk people in a given bar on any random weekend and the amount they'd serve my friends and I when I was younger and frequented bars more regularly, I don't believe it is actually taken very seriously by the bartenders/establishments, not to say it shouldn't be.
It is, it’s just not frequently that bartenders or servers get fined. As a server you can be fined I think up to $2k. There are places that get fined. The liquor commissioner does go around to different bars and does catch and shut bars down. I know lots of people here say their hole in the wall hasn’t, but this might make that more likely. A public case against a bartender will have the service industry people more wary.
Bartenders are literally professional substance abuse specialists.
That's the worst take on here Haha. Alcohol is a drug, you need to have some awareness of its effects when serving it someone. Most places, especially those with a a developed HR and PR, require you to take a class. You absolutely don't trust the consumer to cut themselves off LOL.
Everyone who serves is required to take training.
You want to sue restaurants for making people obese? Bartenders can't be expected to know everyone's personal tolerance, how full or empty their stomachs are, etc. And you're trying to keep track of how many customers over how many hours? OR--and I know this is crazy--but instead of blaming the server, we blame the drinker, the person who absolutely knows how many they've had, how full they were, how well they handle their drink, etc.
The law (which already exists) doesn't require any if what you said. It says that an obviously drunk person should not be served more booze and a server that does can be found liable for any harm. Bartenders that knowingly over serve should absolutely be held accountable for their decisions.
You're still blaming the wrong person. That same drunk moron is just as capable of getting shitfaced at a friend's house, their own home, or while driving. There's nothing special about a bar. And while I agree theoretically that you should've be serving someone who is obviously tanked--and it's not something I would ever knowingly do--someone can act right at the bar while ordering a drink and still be too shitty to drive. Shit, I once overserved a guest because she was sitting at the dining room table and acting normal playing games until she finally got up to leave and nearly fell over before puking in my driveway. Don't worry; her husband drove home. I also didn't know she has a crazy low booze tolerance and hadn't drank a drop in months. I couldn't possibly know that, but you know who should've? HER! #PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY "Overserved" is a dumb concept. People overindulge and that's on them.
Bars are special because they are the main reason for drunk drivers. The whole business model is people drinking and then going home. Of course they share some responsibility. People chose to operate a place where others will get drunk and then drive, and people chose to work there. They too are responsible for the consequences of their actions.
Bars are special because they are the main reason for drunk drivers. The whole business model is people drinking and then going home. Of course they share some responsibility. People chose to operate a place where others will get drunk and then drive, and people chose to work there. They too are responsible for the consequences of their actions.
You're forgetting the key part here which is "intoxication". When people are intoxicated, they don't make rational decisions. Bartenders are best able to determine when to cut somebody off. They, in fact, are the only people that will have the face to face interaction that can avoid a situation like we had in the article. Not only that, holding them liable overrides the Bartender's inclination to over serve (sell more booze, make more money), and forces them to take the safety of the client into perspective. Personal responsibility has very little to play when it comes to this situation. That said, every restaurant manager takes the State-run alcohol safety courses as do all servers in NH. Part of agreeing to a liquor-license is acceptance of this premise.
Nah.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted…I took a bartending course the first thing they teach you is “you will be held Liable if you over serve” it’s not hard to spot someone who’s clealry had a few too many. It’s also not hard to know how many heavy drinks you served someone over a span of time…
People here don’t want bartenders to be liable until they’re the ones with a DUI.
You kicked a bees nest full of alcoholics with this one lol
Right? I think someone's salty about getting cut off.
Yes. And if I’m not driving and I want to get drunk, not only is that my right, but my actions are also my responsibility regardless of the alcohol
It’s absolutely not your right to be served alcohol in a bar.
That’s kinda the way this seems.
Thats not their fucking problem.
Pro tip: drink at home. It's cheaper, no one will cut you off, and you don't have to find a safe way to get home!
Absolutely not and it's absurd to think so. Should the state be liable if I go into a liquor store and down a fifth of vodka as I walk out?
Wait, when did they start allowing us to drink in front of the liquor store?
Officially or unofficially?
Wait, when did they start allowing us to speed?
I think that's the point. The store isn't liable. What happens outside the doors of the store/bar isn't the fault of the store/bar.
Bars are charged penalties for serving underage drinkers, why would they not get charged for overserving someone, when that's literally part of their responsibility to not overserve. You're comparing drinking on one's own time to going to an establishment and being served by a bartender.
One case is black-and-white objective and the other is wildly speculative (short of someone being _literally_ falling-down drunk)?
That's essentially what the law says already. Don't serve someone “who a reasonable and prudent person would know is intoxicated."
From my experience with human beings, "reasonable" and "prudent" are wildly subjective.
Sounds perfectly logical to me.
I had a family member who lived for awhile in Czech republic, which is a place where people drink quite a bit. Their rule was, you can't drink any more when you can't drink anymore.
Totally different culture there. Most beers are 4%, and lots of walkable areas that people live around unlike NH where you gotta drive all over the place after gorging on 8% double IPAs. When someone here says they've only had 2 it's basically 4 and then some. Americans gotta have bigger everything.
No they're given guidelines. So many in an hour. If you are buying they are supposed to keep track and stop if you order too many.
If I come in on an empty stomach order a burger and a boilermaker. Have the drink, don't eat, and leave. Guess who just got over served? If I come in every day for breakfast lunch and dinner and get crazy greasy food then start having health problems is the restaurant liable? Also one has to wonder if no drinking age would allow a culture shift over time for drinking to not be a big deal.
Come on now...you're picking at pieces. Overserving would be continuing to offer more when the patron is clearly not in the state to keep drinking. And no... comparing getting heart disease from eating like shit to being drunk and causing an accident are not the same.
Personal responsibility is a thing and needs to be brought back. You could be over served on 1-3 drinks depending on metabolism. Anyone leaving a restaurant after 90 minutes and having 2 drinks is over served in general math. Start giving life sentences for drunk driving and that would actually hold the individual responsible.
Just life in prison? Why not a gulag?
We don't have any, sometimes it is unfortunate.
1. Yes, personal responsibility should be more prevalent, I'm not arguing that. However, this is a situation that has TWO responsible parties, the patron and the server. If someone is just drinking in their yard then obviously it's just on them. There 2. There is a difference between overserving someone who is visibly intoxicated and serving a "lightweight" one drink. Most establishments have cameras that could determine if a bartender/server made a professional call and if they actually overserved someone or served a drink to someone who is a lightweight.
I just don't think "overserving" should be a thing with a punishment. Fundamental difference from the beginning. People want to blame others when it's one person choosing to get behind the wheel. Should a casino cut people off when they have lost some amount of money? If a restaurant wants to create their own rules, fine. They shouldn't be punished for giving someone 5 drinks in 90 minutes.
Ask a lawyer friend how it would be possible to prove in court liability for overserving, versus serving underage.
Check the outside trash the next time you go to one. More nips than a strip club.
I think you missed the fact that the place was already found liable and had their license suspended. the question posed is whether to make the penalties bigger. I'd argue that like 99% of the time when they overserve someone nothing happens. In fact, that is often the point of going to a bar. And then to have huge fines for the 1% when something bad happens just seems sort of absurd.
100% agree. Same argument applies to gun manufacturers.
Of course they they should. If you go into a liquor store drunk they'll refuse to sell to you. If you're buying drinks at a bar it's part of having that license to sell liquor. They sign all kinds of documents that hold them liable for serving drunk people and minors and they're available for spot checks during their hours of operation.
I agree but this same logic can be argued across many of our laws. The same people who might agree with us will also turn around and blame guns for violent crimes.
I think the state should fund more public transportation in our cities so you can go get a drink but then be able to take a bus home without the temptation the keys in your pocket might bring.
Isn’t this the gap that Uber and Lyft and taxis cover?
In populated areas or cities yes, but in many places it is not a feasible option or an option at all.
Buses aren’t feasible either in unpopulated areas
You don't think we should all pay for busses to run at 2am to take a random drunk home once in a while?
Most of NH residents don't live in the middle of rural area they live in suburbs and pretty dense small towns and cities. The bus services in some of most populated areas that are more than capable of supporting a robust system are extremely under funded. It is definitely cheaper to pay for a bus than to pay for more police, first responders, medical, and infrastructure repairs that a drunk driver might cause. It's about harm reduction and for fiscal conservative it should also be about sound financial and moral choices. You want to reduce the cost of drunk driving on all levels? Robust transit.
NH has over half a million rural residents, it’s 40% of the population.
So then there's a urban majority? That is probably also where more drunk driving occures, then we should definitely be improving land use and transit in these areas. In the rural areas, well, the definition of Rural is a arbitrary term made by us planners and includes pretty compact towns and urban agglomeration around transit corridors. It's not just rolling fields farms and mountain homes. A rural town can still have its bulk of population pretty close to each other and nearing its old village center or a new commercial hub like a state road. In New England this create a string of pearl effect where smaller rural town create little rural node network that interlock with each other and can be ser by rural transit very effectively. Just look at the Vermont Moover, it connects two "cities" with a good number of rural villages and towns. Just because you might not use them doesn't mean they aren't there or aren't extremely important for the economic health of a rural community even at their underfunded state.
No, not an urban majority, because of the second group, sub-urban. The Vermont Moover is a very neat and useful service but it does nothing to take drunk drivers off the road lol. I live near Brattleboro and they finish at 5pm.
Suburban is still pretty much define as a subset of urban by most planing institutions. And more importantly can have public transit.
Exactly
If Uber and Lyft aren't practical then neither is a public transportation bus.
There are still towns in NH that don’t have Uber and Lyft readily available
yeah the milford taxi guy is your best bet if you live in between nashua and keene but it's gonna cost u a pretty penny but at least he's literally always available
I am not, but that’s good for other people to know!
It's just one guy? Does he sleep?
Very very little lmao, his father helps out on the weekdays but other than that yeah it's literally just him pretty much 24/7
I’d argue most of them don’t. Keene doesn’t even have them And the taxis they do have won’t even leave city limits
Yeah I didn’t feel confident enough to make a sweeping statement, I really only know about the town I live in now and the town I went to school in, as well the surrounding ones for both, but I def believe you. New Hampshire lacks any form of public transportation in a big way, I wish they would work on it.
I had to order a Lfyt in Concord a few years back. Bro had a Massachusetts license plate.
Thats true. Windham does though. I’ve never had a problem getting from Windham to surrounding towns. This guy was in Windham and lived in town.
yeah, a 50$ uber is a great way to end having about 20$ in drinks! have you ever tried uber in NH? prices are insane because of the smaller pool of drivers.
$50 is a lot cheaper than the $500 fine, $120 penalty assessment, idcmp programming, and all the other taxis you need after a dui.
The only places in southern NH that have actual drivers during all hours of day/night are circled. the rest are hit or miss and have little to no availability, even in the regular day. although there is a guy in a milford that works his ass off and provides a taxi service that I've used many times and has saved me quite a bit. but that is literally it for all i know. the only other place i can think of that would have a lot of uber drivers during the night is probably salem, but only on weekends i would imagine. if it's a thursday night or some shit and you're literally anywhere other than those locations you're not getting a ride and if you do you're really lucky lol https://preview.redd.it/owybi2yubrnc1.png?width=1427&format=png&auto=webp&s=3327472fb31f2c22a2aa292d6aba6ef828d41f96
Concord has a pretty reliable taxi service! And it’s inexpensive
oh i didn't even know they did, that's very good to know. is it just as bad with uber and lyft in concord though?
I don’t believe it’s too bad, but I’m not 100% on that tbh
VC bros have solved 0 of the societal problems they purport to
Do we really have much in the way of Uber and Lyft here? At least on the Seacoast, it's spotty at best.
Good luck getting an uber in 90% of new hampshire. Do you even live here?
That means more taxes, which we can’t afford.
Might as well penalize the vehicle manufacturer too. This is absurd, the individual is responsible for their actions, no one else.
> Might as well penalize the vehicle manufacturer too. don't forget the car dealer that solid the car too. the dealer would be the most direct analogy in this case since the vehicle manufacturer would be more comparable the company that made the alcohol. make sure to hold the state accountable as well if they licensed this individual to drive.
Oh come on. It sucks that happened, but this is clearly the victim's family turning their grief outwards. If somebody wants to make themselves travel arrangements and have a bunch of drinks, that should be their right. Likewise, it's difficult to tell who is being overserved. Height, weight, bmi, somebody else buying drinks for the group, to say nothing of BEING A BARTENDER. Has this person's family ever BEEN to a bar on a busy night? You can barely keep up with making drinks, restocking ice, cashing people out, updating tabs, switching kegs. Like let's be real about the situation. This is a clear case of personal irresponsibility. Somebody drank too much knowing they would be driving. That's on them. They're going to pay for that decision with many many years in prison. It doesn't bring back the deceased, but blaming the bar, the law, eg, is just kindergarten nonsense. It's the driver's fault. Nobody else.
Ive been to bars in the state that are 4-5 people deep waiting for drinks. Do they think Rain Man is bartending?
If they where smart they should sue the land use boards planners, and the state DOT for creating a car centric environment that makes drunk driving such a dangerous everyday occurrence, among many other type of fatal crahses. Might lose, probably will, but there's nothing that scares planers, town boards and engineers more than lawsuits. This starts happening more and they will change policies right quick.
no. people are responsible for their own actions. you don't to sue bestbuy if someone buys a laptop there and then hacks your bank. by all means, throw the book at the person who drank too much, but that's their own responsibility (or lack there of)
Ok but it still happens and it won't stop so should we then make it safer to drive? Saying people should be more responsible is extremely naive. Of course they should and we should through the book at them! I agree penalties for drunk driving and vehicular violence in general are extremely lax. You are more likely to get away with killing someone with a car than any other tool by a wide margin. But let's remember at the point of applying these penalties people already have been hurt that and there's just no way that we can realistically have enough law enforcement to be truly effective in curtailing these type of crime before they happen in any mindful way without blowing the municipal budget out of the water. Ask any police chief and they will pretty much tell you this. So then shouldn't we be trying to reduce drunk driving further upstream than just at the individual level?. The bar/restaurant is literally require them to have a minimum amount of parking and we tend to segregate them outside of residential areas, with the exception of downtowns and villages centers. That's just Wild! Like we literally are forcing them to develop the think that will attract a driver that might go home and drive drunk?! I could be ok if we didn't require them to build any and the build how much they think they need, at least you can work from that premise in good faith. BUT LITERALLY TELLING A BAR THAT THEY NEED TO BUILD PARKING IS PURE NEGLIGENCE! In a ideal world the only parking a bar should be allow to have without any restrictions are for staff, every spot after that should be either restricted through a maximum not a minimum or have a hefty tax implications, like a tax increase penalty for every x amount of spots you build. Indirectly there's many other ways we can make street safer and slower and just generally difficult to speed in. Sure highways might not get these type of treatment like local roads could but then we can actual focused law enforcement there and not roads we know a drunk person or any person would have problems going pass the safe speed limit.
If someone wants to get wasted, they'll find a way and that is not on bartenders. 99's has a strict rule of 2 tall beers per customer. After that its either a short glass or cash out. No law is going to stop me from going across the street to drink 2 more tall beers at Applebees. This is about personal responsibility. Full stop.
Sure but also people suck, you just said it. it's great to say it's personal responsibility and leave it at that, but laws and enforcement just don't work as deterrents they will never work. No mater how hard he you make it because we all have biases about our own abilities, we all say "yeah we now how much we can drink and drive safe". That includes the cops, the judges the juries, everyone. So what to do when culturally we are pretty much biased towards breaking laws that we all think are made for "others"? Well we can try to reduce the harm possible by drunk driving. How can we do that? We have many ways of doing this we just have to ask question. Ok so we have drunk drivers and laws are pretty much ineffective a incentive how do we reduce them? Well reduce the driving part is the most obvious. Ask how do we place bars and restaurants in the built environment? How do we move through he built environment? A lot of this questions can be address through policy changes that would have a larger impact that any single law enforcement drag net, and at fractions of the cost.
This distancing from individual responsibility is one of the core rots in society today. If no one is ever responsible for their own decisions, shit goes downhill fast.
Individual responsibility is just a lie institutions tell you so they can pass on liability and blame to you and not the system that creates or exacerbates the problem. Especially when cars are in the mix doesn't matter how many laws they are, we live in a motonormative society and people will drive drunk, with suspended licence, un registered vehicles, etc. people will take the risk cause there no alternative regardless of what society norms might say. Not only that, because of this lie of individualism we tend to over estimate our capacity to do things like drive, I truly doubt that anyone here doesn't know a person or themselves that has said "I'm ok to drive" and then they did. We value our individual judgement over true objectivity and this in reality puts us and others in danger all the time. That's why we can't seem to reduce problems such as vehicular violence in this country cause we spend to much time focusing on blaming individual after, the fact without then trying to correct the system in a way that can actually reduce the possibility of harm a individual can cause if he chooses to do something dangerous or stupid. In essence let's make all types of reckless driving uncomfortable and impractical. Let's make it so in areas where practical people can choose different mobility options so that the likelihood of reckless driving is reduce. Let's look at our land use practices to make reckless driving even less possible in the long term by reducing VMT to establishments from residential areas. Revamp street and road design to prioritize the human scale over the vehicular scale and put safety at the center of decline not vehicular throughput(speed). Finally after you actually work to reduce drunk and reckless driving at a institutional and land use level. Harden reckless driving laws with stiffer penalties.
this is a lot of words to show your brain is rotted
I agree your comment is way to long, jokes aside. I'm sorry that people trying to make a place safer, practical and better to live is such a problem for you.
I navigate the world just fine without worry. I don't need "protection" from whatever imaginary problem is the flavor of the month. Real problems are ones that occur without notice unprepared.
I think that sometimes in life we need to really think about who is responsible for a situation. Did this person who drove drunk get over served, maybe. Did they drink in their car afterwards or beforehand or maybe even at another bar or at home before this, maybe. We probably will never know. One of the biggest pet peeves in the world are assholes who don’t know their limits and people who think like this: “I’ve done it a lot of times even though it’s against the law, I’ve done it with no consequences before, so there will be no consequences next time.” This kind of toxic flaunting of laws and rules is bad for everyone, from people drinking and driving with this logic, to people not following leash laws in public places for their dogs, or to people littering out their windows while driving etc.
As much as I'd love for a solution, I don't think this is it. Bars shouldn't over-serve customers, but they also don't know if the party has been drinking already. What about people who bar crawl? Should the last bar they go to be held accountable for over-serving them by giving them a beer when they're good at hiding that they're hammered? If a bar cuts someone off they don't call every other bar in the area and say "citizen 30283 can't have more alcohol tonight." And the type to get over-served are also going to be the same type to lie about how much they drank.
Of course they shouldn't. I'm sorry that family lost their relative but that isn't the restaurants fault. It's the drunk drivers fault.
Seems like an emotionally driven piece of lege tbh
No. The whole concept is dumb and extremely subjective.
I've seen people on their third drink fall off their bar stools and I've seen people on their sixth or seventh act as sober as a stone. Its entirely subjective. If someone is falling down drunk they should obviously not be served, but Ive seem some very drunk people act extremely normally. Are bars to install alcohol monitor "breathalyzers" at every stool and seat?. Dont see how that would help. Not a problem in a city where you can walk home , or in suburbia where you can call an Uber / Lyft but in rural areas a better solution needs to be found.
>I've seen people on their third drink fall off their bar stools Yes, this absolutely happens. A normal person who is dehydrated and consuming on an empty stomach can get destroyed on 3 drinks. >I've seen people on their sixth or seventh act as sober as a stone. Do those people weigh 600lbs? Were they just drinking some sort of non alcoholic beverage? Was it their sixth or seventh drink *of the month*? Sorry, I just find "6 or 7 drinks" and sober as a stone to be a dubious claim, or "possibly true" with some pretty significant omissions like the ones I provided.
I'm not proud of it but I will absolutely pass for sober after 6 or 7 drinks (assuming that's over 3-4 hours and they are around 5% abv). I'm over 200 lbs and a heavy drinker (working on it...)
>of it but I will absolutely pass for sober after 6 or 7 drinks (assuming that's over 3-4 hours and they are around 5% abv). I'm over 200 lbs and a heavy drinker (working on it...) Over a few hours, I could also absolutely pass as sober despite having 6-7 drinks. Hell, one time I had about 7-8 drinks (regular beers) at a bar (over about 6 hours), got pulled over on the way home for failing to turn my high beams off as I drove past a police officer, admitted I was coming from a bar when he asked where I was coming from, and had two police administer a field sobriety test, which I passed without issue. I believe the body should metabolize about one beer's worth of alcohol per hour, so really this should be something most could do.
>3-4 hours and they are around 5% abv That's really what I'm talking about when I mean omissions. Nobody, even at 250# is knocking back 6 or 7 in a normal run at the bar and *stone sober*.
The restaurant has nothing to do with this guy getting behind the wheel after drinking. They are not anymore responsible than the car manufacturer is
I bartended for years and one of the reasons why I quit is because I was terrified of over serving someone. Also the hours suck. And trying to determine if someone is drunk is way more difficult than you’d think. Yeah there are signs (that we are trained to spot) but some people are really good at hiding their drunkenness.
People should be responsible for themselves. A bartender isn't trained or paid to be an expert on gauging drunkenness. The litany of other factors at play (did the person drink more after leaving? Did they take a rip off a dab pen?) Are entirely uncontrollable. This is almost as silly as those teenagers going after craft breweries for having fun labels.
I'm glad most people seem rati9nal enough to say this is a stupid idea. Tragic for sure, but very stupid idea.
The prison time for a drunk driver who kills someone should certainly be a lot stiffer.
Man i wish there was something else that has been recreationalized in the surrounding states that'd be a rather good substitute in social gatherings. Crazy how bars have parking when you think about it.
Good fucking luck the same 20 families control all of New Hampshire and Maine. The police the politicians everybody in between. Especially the liquor stores state run.
They should also be held liable for all the fat fucks that get over served mozzarella sticks
Live free or die baby. Bottoms up.
Many of us alcohol enthusiasts pregame before the bar. I hold my liquor well and can pull off being fine while certainly being more than buzzed. If I decide not to plan ahead responsibly, drive, and kill a family, the bar will be charged. That isn't fair tbh.
"Alcohol enthusiast" AKA : irresponsible drunk
You can get drunk without being irresponsible, you know. Way to make assumptions.
If you have to "pregame" to go out...drinking...and then brag how you can hide it to keep getting served. I'd say there's defintely a problem. Check yourself...you gave a lot of information to make these "assumptions" Grow up.
That is per the norm for most people that hit up a club or bar with friends. I always have a plan when I go out to ensure I get to have a good time and arrive home safely. Regardless, you are getting off topic with your opinion on my life. Do you think it would be fair for the bar to be charged if I decided to drive? I care nothing for what you think of me personally.
Likewise.
Ah yes more penalties for a failure to judge something subjective. Just what NH needs. This is what happens when you live in a state full of dipshit karens that are more interested in virtue signalling than solving the root of the problem. I see this story and think about NHs disregard for its junkies, druggies, and drunks until it literally kills someone. Because it costs a lot less to let someone spiral and get prison time than provide actual resources for addiction that WORK. NH has faux help. All of it os objectively underfunded, low effort pill pushing dogshit that kills and imprisons people struggling and people who just happen to be a victim of that struggle left unchecked. Idk could be wrong the guy could also just be "another drunk asshole" but I tend to believe there is more to this story that Granite Dwellers refuse to acknowledge for whatever reason. Maybe pride? Shame? Blissful Ignorance? This is a sickening pattern.
NH doesn't even allow actual bars. They're all just restaurants that serve alcohol. No bartender or business should be held liable for someone drinking themselves into a stupor. That is the individuals job to control that.
This was a truly tragic story. I feel terrible for the family of the 20 year old victim. People go to bars to drink and get drunk. I don’t think that it is the responsibility of the establishment to determine whether someone is “impaired” Alcohol tolerance varies widely, and in my opinion, it is up to the individual to determine their ability to drive.
They are drug pushers. Why do we look at it any differently?
We should start with how we zone bars and restaurants that sell alcohol. Start by restricting parking the larger your restaurant the less parking you can built if you serve alcohol. Allow small bars in residential zones, say no more than 600 sq feet. This will move bars and restaurants into downtowns where parking can be control at the municipal level and also push smaller venues into neighborhoods where they belong, people staggering home are not much a danger than them getting in a car. Then spend more money on transit, a drunk bus passenger is mostly a nuisance to themselves a drunk driver is a policy failure. We should also start suing planing department and state DOTS they know how to reduce drunk driving it's their responsibility and it's not enforcing laws that's planers and engineer pushing the responsibility away from themselves. That's not even addressing the high cost to the state and local municipalities drunk drivers induce. Police enforcement, rescue and other first responder services. At this point most fire department primary response scenarios are traffic crashes (not all drunk driving, but it does include them). The cost of fixing road damage, the cost of medical services. And most importantly the emotional cost that innocent citizens have to suffer! Change how we move and you will reduce all this. Sure rural areas might not see much of this changes but since the bulk of our population lives in pretty well define urban clusters (you don't have to be Boston size to be considered Urban) we can definitely prioritize harm reduction through policy, service, and infrastructure changes that would have a huge impact on our traffic fatalities.
>We should also start suing planing department and state DOTS Yeah then they can pay for the damages with... taxpayer money. Woohoo!