Bartender Fired for Calling Cops on Customer...

[HairOfTheDog]

Now, if the drunk man was acting violently or touching the ladies then I could see possibly calling the police.

Because those things are so much worse than driving drunk and running over someone's loved one. Would you be saying the same thing about her if someone you loved had been killed by a drunk driver?

You didn't ask me, but I think your question/point is an important one.

Yes, I'm much more concerned about a drunken person getting behind the wheel than someone acting violently or pervy in an adult environment; the latter can be contained. Once a drunk driver hits the road, there's no containment of the risk to the lives of everyone in his/her vicinity. Fortunately, no one that I love has been killed/injured by a drunk driver, but the odds of it happening still aren't as low as they should be.

It's great that drunk driving fatalities have declined significantly in developed countries over the last 20 years due to education, legislation, punishment, etc.. But, traffic accidents are still the 10^th leading cause of death globally and at the very very least, 40,000 people worldwide die annually at the hands of drunk drivers (much harder to measure in some countries than others). Between the US, the EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand alone it's around 20,000 per year. That's a lot of preventable deaths and lives ruined.

[ramseycat]

I think Dopey is right.

It IS a slippery slope User. I agree that as responsible citizens we should stop someone from driving drunk. But again, people need to take responsibility for their own actions. It really is that simple. It's not like people haven't had it drilled into their heads and seen what can happen.

My nephew lost a friend last week to a DWI. The kid left my nephews house drunk. He could have crashed there. They tried to make him stay but he refused. Now he is dead and his parents buried their 22 year old son when they should have been attending his graduation. My nephew is wracked with guilt that he didn't MAKE him stay. Tackle him and take his keys. But again, this kid made his own choice and paid a terrible price.

[cladking]

It's illegal to serve a drink too.

The patron should have tried to get her arrested and pressed charges.

I'd have fired her for not minding her own business.

[cladking]

Our entire culture has jumped the shark. People are no longer responsible for anything they do or the results of their actions. Bridges last six years and brand new building are bulldozed instead of remodeled. If youlet your city fill with water you blame someone else and get reelected. If you turn the entire country into illiterates you are appointed to lead education. We have 100,000,000 earl buts and he is glorified.

I guess all the responsibility that should be getting laid on the dopey CEO's who put companies out of business and crooks, John Corzine, and bankers being rewarded for theft and failure has to go somewhere so we blame the least responsible people in the country for all out ills; drunks.

Sinclair Lewis marveled how a person too drunk to walk could get ibn a car and drive just fine and now drunks are blamed for MF Global and the inability of the country to function.

This is utter madness. Even when a drunk kills somebody it's not as bad as what's going on every day with people being rewarded for it. What is with the war on drunks? I'm not in favor of drunk driving of course but why is it about the only thing that seems to matter. They turn murderers loose but hammer the drunks. At least the damn drunks didn't intentionally kill anybody and contrary to popular belief there are some way worse drivers on the road than drunks and they never even get ticketed. People will intentionally talk on the phone or text when they drive and in most cases this is far more dangerous than driving drunk. At least the drunk has an excuse since his judgement is impaired.

shark.. ...jump.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yes, everyone is responsible for their own actions.

-You wanna drink yourself to death, fine by me. Your life, your body.
-You wanna shoot yourself in the head, fine by me. Your life, your body.
-You wanna prostitute yourself, fine by me. Your life, your body.

But:
-You wanna get trashed and get behind the wheel. Not ok.
I'll try to stop you and I hope others make reasonable efforts to do the same, but I'm/we're not responsible if you do it anyway (and I don't think bars or alcohol retailers should be held accountable).
-You wanna shoot up a movie theater, mall, school, any innocent person(s). Not ok.
-You wanna pimp your child out. Not ok.

cladking, it's hard to take you seriously. You recently argued that car manufacturers should be forced (via governmental regulation) to add new features in order to reduce less than 120 US deaths per year caused by people who don't look behind them when they put their cars in reverse. Yet, you feel that admonishment and regulations to reduce over 10,000 drunk driving deaths per year in the US somehow equates to holding drunks responsible for all of society's ills? Ridiculous.

Nobody's advocating for laws against walking while drunk, singing badly while drunk, pissing in the closet while drunk, having sex with strangers while drunk, banning cars because some people drive drunk, etc.. Somehow, I and my (sometimes) drunken friends have all failed to come under attack by this war on drunks that you claim is waging around us. Of course, we don't drive drunk.

Btw, I see as much or more attention focused on controlling guns, smoking, obesity, texting while driving... as I do alcohol-related risks to self and others.

[crash]

Drive up a ramp drunk and feel his wrath!

[Maggot]

It takes away the trust, she could have handled it better, but drunks never realize they are drunk unless they are normal and realize they are drunk. I know when I'm drunk but many, many people have'nt a clue. She should have just slugged him.

[JsMom]

Now, if the drunk man was acting violently or touching the ladies then I could see possibly calling the police.

Because those things are so much worse than driving drunk and running over someone's loved one. Would you be saying the same thing about her if someone you loved had been killed by a drunk driver?

I can't give a answer to that because I don't know if she tried to stop him or get him a cab before he left. If she did then yah she was probably right on calling the police. I was just throwing something out there to stir the pot. And, the last part is too ridiculous to even respond to.

[cladking]

cladking, it's hard to take you seriously. You recently argued that car manufacturers should be forced (via governmental regulation) to add new features in order to reduce less than 120 US deaths per year caused by people who don't look behind them when they put their cars in reverse. Yet, you feel that admonishment and regulations to reduce over 10,000 drunk driving deaths per year in the US somehow equates to holding drunks responsible for all of society's ills? Ridiculous.

Not exactly. It is my contention that the automakers and everyone else should be held accountable. If they are going to trade off 125 lives per year for better "styling" then they should have to pay for every one of those 125 deaths. We all should reassess our tastes if manufacturers care so little about life and we care so much about "style".

It's a societal problem just asletting John Corzine and those who text while driving walk around free while a drunk driver is hjarassed and has their life ruined. We reelect Nagle despite many hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage (which is the exact same thing as deaths) but a drunk who hasn't hurt anyone can have his license suspended and incur huge costs to defend themselves.

We have horribly misplaced priorities. We are a society that has jumped the shark. (at least we didn't need a ramp to jump it though)

[cladking]

How many childrens' lives are ruined by the Los Angeles school board each year. 25% of kids learn how to read and write and the rest fill our prisons and cemeteries. They have time to boycott other states for trying to enforce federal laws while they fiddle and children die in the thousands and far more have their lives ruined.

But at least if you drive drunk the state will catch you when they deprive the entire population of individual rights and human dignity at roadblocks. We forfeit our liberty for security and a better chance of making it home alive at night (or at least when we're killed it will be someone on a cellphone instead of a few drinks). If we were really worried about public safety then texters would be in jail with the drunks. This isn't about safety but controlling peoples' lives and a puritanical government.

We jumped the shark. If we were really worried about drunk driving the penalties would get severe with each conviction. Instead it's more like a moneymaker for government which sets some arbitrary number that defines if you've had too many. It simply doesn't matter if a driver is in control. If he's texting it's not reckless driving it's a coincidence. If he blows .07 he's fine but .08 and that's it. Surely you see a problem here. Why would every state have the exact same .08 limit. Oh yeah, I remember it's what nanny fed insists on after they take most of the money out of a state so they can get some back for road work.

[Cracker]

You don't think the parents have anything to do with that? That's crazy, clad.

The most basic form of society is the family. The rest of us aren't related. I'm not responsible for you. I'm responsible for my own. And I don't want you tards having any control over me.

Did America die in the last 20 years? WTF? Who are you people?

[Ilyanna]

Yes, everyone is responsible for their own actions.

-You wanna drink yourself to death, fine by me. Your life, your body.
-You wanna shoot yourself in the head, fine by me. Your life, your body.
-You wanna prostitute yourself, fine by me. Your life, your body.

But:
-You wanna get trashed and get behind the wheel. Not ok.
I'll try to stop you and I hope others make reasonable efforts to do the same, but I'm/we're not responsible if you do it anyway (and I don't think bars or alcohol retailers should be held accountable).
-You wanna shoot up a movie theater, mall, school, any innocent person(s). Not ok.
-You wanna pimp your child out. Not ok.

Pretty much that. Yeah, imo it's time people start taking responsibility for their actions and what happens to them as a consequence. I am sick of people yammering on about how everyone else but them is to blame and, even worse, scream for the judicial system/gvt. to protect them when good common sense would have avoided them being hurt in the first place (for example in the case of that Coca Cola drinking woman).

BUT

I also have this strange ethical mindset where I do want to look out for others and try to keep them from getting injured/killed/hurt. In this case, the guy could have endangered others because he was an idiot thinking he could drive hammered. I have been around enough drunk people (and been drunk often enough, myself) to know that sometimes, you CAN'T talk sense into them or convince them to take a cab. If I would then just give up and say, fuck it, it's his responsibility, and he goes and harms another person, damn, I would feel that I've failed the third party and myself.

I've seen bartenders demanding the car keys from a drunk regular as a condition to serve more liquor, and refusing to serve if the patron wouldn't comply. I like that solution. It's what I would have tried first before getting third parties or the cops involved. Yeah, I definitely would call the cops if nothing else worked. And raise hell about my employer being a materialistic motherfucker to hold his income in a higher regard than the life/health of a potential DUI victim.

[Duchess]

I started a thread a long time ago about what our responsibility is to stupid people. I never want to see people needlessly hurt but keeping track of what the stupid are doing or about to do could be a full time job.

[Ilyanna]

I am not talking about actively keeping track of any and all stupid actions. But if it's so obvious it kinda screams in your face like, I dunno, an obviously drunk person getting into their car to drive, well, I rather try to keep that from happening than, say, having to perform CPR on their victim. *shrugs*

[HairOfTheDog]

Drive up a ramp drunk and feel his wrath!

I think I'll get drunk and drive in reverse down the ramp without looking first. That way, no wrath. If I hurt anyone, I can blame the car manufacturer or the assholes who are waging the war on drunks.

[HairOfTheDog]

James Ruiz is two years into a 40-year sentence for vehicular homicide, but believes he's a victim, too.

Ruiz, out on bond after a fifth DWI arrest in 2010, rammed the truck of his drinking buddy, Gilbert Mendoza, into a car after a night of partying in Santa Fe, N.M. Sisters Del Lynn and Deshauna Peshlakai were killed in the accident. Ruiz marked the third anniversary of that tragic fatality by suing Mendoza, Applebee's and another restaurant for "emotional distress," claiming the establishments overserved him and that Mendoza insisted he drive even knowing his DWI history and his drunken state. He's also seeking a new trial based on a claim of ineffective counsel.


Good luck with those lawsuits, asshole. Talk about lack of personal responsibility.

[ramseycat]

What a prick. Be a man and accept your sentence. Clearly he didn't learn his lesson after the first DWI or the second or the third. By the fifth it's his own damn fault. I hope his suits get dismissed.

[username]

Insisted he drive...what a douche.

[HairOfTheDog]

What a prick. Be a man and accept your sentence. Clearly he didn't learn his lesson after the first DWI or the second or the third. By the fifth it's his own damn fault. I hope his suits get dismissed.

Definitely a prick.

Just saw a more detailed article on this case.

Snipped:
The Peshlakai family has filed a wrongful death suit against Ruiz, the restaurants and others in the case. That suit is pending in state district court. The Peshlakai sisters and their parents were in town for a high school basketball tournament when the fatal wreck took place. The parents were injured in the crash.

Terrible loss for the Peshlakai family, because of an asshole like Ruiz. But, in my opinion, they shouldn't be suing the restaurants either.

This is the kind of situation that the bartender in the OP may have been trying to avoid.

[HairOfTheDog]

2 DRUNK 2 CARE

I don't know why it's taking so long to get the driver's toxicology test results back in this case, but no charges have been filed against this driver and the Florida Highway Patrol says it's waiting on the tox results whilst an investigation is underway.



2 hours after tweeting, "2 drunk 2 care" to her boyfriend, 20-year-old Kayla Mendoza (pictured above) rammed into another car and killed two young women. Her boyfriend, Javier Reyes claims that '2 drunk 2 care' was in response to him "feeling a little possessive, jealous".

In the meantime, the families of the two young women killed in the crash have filed lawsuits against Mendoza, Reyes (whose car she was driving), and the Tijuana Taxi Co., the bar that allegedly served her alcohol on the night of Nov. 16.

The Tijuana Taxi Co. would not answer specific questions about the lawsuit or confirm whether their employees had served the under-age Mendoza, but have issued a statement saying they are cooperating with authorities investigating the case and that “all of our bartenders and servers undergo training with Responsible Vendors, a company that teaches the laws, liabilities and safety practices needed to work in an establishment where alcohol is served."
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Very sad for the families of the two young women who were killed that night.

It usually rubs me the wrong way when drunk drivers or their victims attempt to sue bartenders or drinking establishments; it's the personal responsibility of the driver to moderate him/herself, IMO.

BUT, if this bar provided the alcohol to an underage drinker (assuming she had no sophisticated fake ID), it rubs me less wrong if they are deemed partially responsible.

Regardless of what happens with the civil suits, if Mendoza's tox screen comes back over the legal limit, she should be criminally charged, IMO. In that case, that stupid tweet is really gonna hurt any attempt to defend herself (unless, of course, she suffers from Affluenza ) - it's tantamount to a confession.