Should Servers Be Certified to Pour?
Following Fatal Crash, Husband Is Hoping for Law for Mandatory Bartender Training
A Superior Court jury in Middletown recently pointed its finger at the Chester bar where Richard Roy drank vodka martinis the night his pickup slammed head-on into Donna Moran's car.
Moran's husband, George Amarant, won a $250,000 verdict this month
against the owners of the Sage American Grill & Riverside Bar in a
case that rekindled debate about the liability of bartenders and
taverns in alcohol-related crashes involving injury or death.
Connecticut does not mandate training or certification for bartenders
and others who serve alcohol. In the past, state legislators considered
but failed to pass bills requiring servers to undergo training about
laws regarding the distribution of alcohol, including identifying and
refusing service to drunken customers.
But Amarant wants legislators to reconsider the issue, hoping that his
wife's death and the recent court verdict, which hinged in part on the
testimony of the bartender who served Roy, will persuade politicians to
take another look at requiring mandatory server training.
"It seems to me that it protects the bar, protects the populous and
protects the driver," Amarant said, adding that insurance companies
offer discounts to establishments that conduct such training.
Moran was driving to her synagogue when her car was hit by Roy's pickup
on the night of Sept. 8, 2005, on a rural road in Chester. Roy had just
left the bar where, according to testimony, he had two drinks after
drinking beer earlier in the day. A test taken later showed that Roy
had a blood-alcohol level of 0.176 percent, more than double the state
limit of 0.08 percent, police said.
As part of a plea deal, Roy was sent to prison for 26 months, followed by six months of home confinement.
Moran's death jolted her family and the communities where she was known
for her work as a nutritionist for poor families and as an activist and
devoted volunteer for many causes. Friends recalled her dedication to
her personal relationships and her synagogue. Before her death, Moran
earned a degree in library science and was about to start a job as
librarian at Brainerd Memorial Library in Haddam.
Ironically, Moran's devotion played a part in Amarant's own battle to
get sober 20 years ago. After coping with alcoholism in her own family,
she helped her husband fight his addiction to alcohol.
"Donna recognized to break the cycle, she had to take a stand," Amarant
said. Though still reeling from her death, Amarant said he's ready to
help prevent others from suffering such a tragic loss.
"Getting a law passed would be a nice legacy to have for Donna," Amarant said.
But passage of a mandatory training law won't be easy.
For six years, Elizabeth Trendowski unsuccessfully fought for such
legislation with backing, she said, from restaurants, bars and package
store owners.
It was easy to get legislators to co-sign on the legislation, said
Trendowski, the former president of the Servers and Managers Alcohol
Responsibility Training program. But the measures never made it past
the general law committee.
There were concerns about how much of a financial burden it would be
for employers to pay for the programs. And because serving often comes
with a high turnover rate, some questioned whether it would be worth it
for employers to invest in a bartender or waitress who would likely
soon leave the job.
Last year, a law was passed giving the state's liquor control
commissioner the authority to mandate training for liquor permit
holders who violate the Liquor Control Act. But even in these cases,
the training is not mandatory.
"This was all we got," Trendowski said about the law that went into effect in January. "And this was after years of trying."
Trendowski, who said she has trained more than 23,000 servers, said
participants finish the class realizing there's more to identifying a
drunken person than just counting drinks or hearing words slurred.
"There's never been a class that hasn't thanked me," Trendowski said.
"I'm sad they didn't pass mandatory server training. It's like saying
to the people who serve alcohol, 'You are legally liable, so you better
know the rules, but you're not going to know the rules.'"
Jan C. Trendowski, Elizabeth Trendowski's husband and the attorney for
Sage American Grill, said training for the bartender who served Roy
probably would not have made a difference.
Trendowski said Roy spent one hour and 10 minutes drinking his first
vodka martini at the bar and 50 minutes on the second drink. He said
the bartender testified that Roy acted calm and "looked fine." Things
trainers advise bartenders to look out for — a drinker's judgment,
inhibition, reaction time and coordination — did not appear unusual as
Roy sat at the bar, Trendowski said.
"You cannot look at a person in general and determine whether they are
at criminal legal standard," Trendowski said. Trendowski said the
bartender did not recall whether he had received server training.
"I don't know if it would have made a difference here," he said.
But training may have mattered to the jury.
During the trial, Amarant's attorney, Robert P. Dutcher, showed that
although the bartender had been a waiter at the restaurant for two
years, it was only his fourth shift as a bartender. Three people at the
crash scene, including a veteran bartender, testified that Roy acted
drunk, slurring his speech, staggering and taking swings at people.
"They all had no trouble telling, even in the darkness," that Richard
Roy was drunk, Dutcher said. Amarant said he believes the bartender may
have been intimidated by Roy and served him larger drinks after he
complained about having to pay for a $9 drink at the restaurant.
"I just wish that bartenders were better trained and that they made
more of an effort to really look for subtle signs of intoxication,"
Dutcher said.
Bill Williams,
education director of the Connecticut Hospitality Educational
Foundation, said it would be too expensive to fund mandatory training
for servers and bartenders in all of the state's bars and restaurants.
Instead, he said the Connecticut Restaurant Association, which created
the foundation, supports requiring training for one person in the
establishment who, in turn, can train the rest of the staff. He said
the arrangement could be modeled after how the state monitors and
certifies food handling in the state, requiring that every restaurant
and other businesses have at least one qualified food operator.
Established qualified food operators could be the people required to
get mandatory server training, Williams said.
Many bartenders are deciding to get trained on their own or finding ways to get training from their employers.
Sharon Chase, bar manager at the Warner Theatre in Torrington,
where bartenders volunteer during shows, recently organized training
for the theater's servers and others from four area establishments.
Chase, 51, said she learned things during the training program that 20
years of bartending failed to teach her.
"We were worried about the Warner's liability, but mostly, we wanted to
make sure our bartenders felt comfortable handling any type of
situation," she said.
Contact Alaine Griffin at agriffin@courant.com.