Dram Shop Liability Laws? Yes, Please

When I first started bartending, I was 18 and lived in Michigan. There, all bartenders had to take an alcohol awareness class and pass a test in order to serve alcohol. This class taught how alcohol’s effects differed based on whether the drinker was male or female and the signs that someone was drunk. The reason for the class and test was that Michigan had a dram shop liability law, which stated that the bartender and/or bar owner could be held responsible for damages or injuries committed by a person served in their establishment. The bar/nightclub owner I worked for didn’t mess around; bartenders were expected to cut off customers unless they were regulars who we knew took taxis home, and this was standard at all bars.

When I moved to Nebraska, I started tending bar in a busy neighborhood dive bar. We had customers who would drink until they literally passed out on the bar. I was 19, and I figured Nebraska had a law similar to Michigan’s so I cut off people when I knew they’d had too much to drink.

One day, the bar owner approached me and said, “Did you cut off PW last night?”

“Yes,” I said. “He was sleeping at the bar.”

“We don’t cut people off,” she said.

I was flabbergasted. You’d rather have someone with their head on the bar, sleeping? Someone who I later watched night after night then get into his car and drive?

I lost respect for my boss, and I felt defenseless against the drunks I was serving.

Recently, Nebraska proposed a dram shop liability law — a law that would make bar owners responsible for injuries or damages committed by a drunk driver. Currently, 22 states have these laws, and 14 additional states have limited variations of them. I’m hearing a lot of discussion about the topic on KFAB, and although it may be an unpopular opinion, I agree with passing a dram shop liability law in Nebraska. In fact, in a state with so many drunk driving arrests, I can’t believe this law wasn’t passed many years ago.

I’ve been on both sides of the bar, and I bartended for 14 years. As a bartender, I absolutely loathed serving sloppy drunks. Sure, everyone gets drunk and has fun. But when someone has had far too much to drink, they’re a bartender’s biggest pain in the ass. I didn’t enjoy old men flirting with me to a point flirting should never reach. I didn’t enjoy men getting drunk and brawling in my bar. And I most certainly didn’t enjoy cleaning up a drunk’s booze-barf. I could tell you stories about drunks that would curl your toes.

In fact, it got to the point that I started bartending in mid- to upscale restaurant bars that allowed the bartender to cut off people when they were obviously drunk. Life’s too short to deal with sloppy drunks every night.

In my early 20s, I often wished that bartenders would have cut me off the night before. Wondering how I got myself and my car home the night before was the least of my worries. I could have killed someone. Sometimes, I was so drunk that I’d pull into a parking lot and sleep for a couple of hours because I couldn’t drive home.

I’m certainly not proud of this behavior, but back then and still now, I wonder why no bartender ever said, “Honey, you’ve had enough. Save your money and go home.” None of them offered to call a taxi. None of them stopped adding booze to my drinks.

These were things I learned as a bartender. Personally, I think it’s common courtesy to offer to call a cab for someone who is too drunk to drive. I also was known among my peers for serving drunks nonalcoholic beer rather than their regular beer, or adding just a splash of booze to a mixed drink. Honestly, when someone is drunk, they don’t know the difference, and I was not only doing myself the favor of not having to deal with an asshole, but I was also doing them a favor. (P.S. I didn’t charge them for “fake” mixed drinks, either, because I’m nice like that.)

I think the main reason more bartenders here don’t cut off drunk people is they have no recourse. If you cut someone off, you’re an asshole or a bitch. When I worked in Michigan, it was easy. All you had to say was, “Sorry, man. I don’t have a choice. It’s the law.” Moreover, the bartenders at every establishment did the same thing, so it wasn’t like a drunk person could say, “Well, I never get cut off at X bar. You just suck.”

As a libertarian, I’d like to say that dram shop liability laws are unnecessary and that government is just butting in where it doesn’t belong. But my experience as a bartender (and as a former drunk) shows that all too often people don’t know when to stop drinking. Drunks often don’t know they’re drunk, so one more drink always sounds good. Then they think they’re OK to drive home, too.

Since we can’t count on drunk people to realize they’re drunk, we have to put the responsibility in the hands of the people who control the booze. And the only way to ensure that bartenders and bar owners maintain that responsibility is to make them liable.