Essay/Term paper: Don't blame me

Essay, term paper, research paper:  English Composition

Who job is it really to realize if you or myself have had too much to drink? What we're discussing is the simple fact if it is a bar's, bartender, or waiters' responsibility for their customers actions once they leave. Some people believe so, like our State of Texas. The question is whose respoonsibility really is it? I actually don't believe that it is no one persons responsibility for how much one person drink, except for the people themselves. The State on the other had believes and enforces thatit is the bar's, bartender, ot waiters' responsibility.

Personally, I don't think that there is and one around that knows me well enough how mich it takes me to be drunk or intoxicated to where I may hurt others or myself. To be truthful, at times I don't realize it myself until I actually get up from seat and walk around for a while. So how can we hold others responsible for wat we do after we do after we leave their site? I don't think it is fair; it is nearly impossible to spot everybody that has been served to where you can tell if thy have dad too much. The legal terms the State gives is " the provider (a person who sells or servers an alcoholic beverage under authority of a license or permit) is responsible for the provision (the person who comsumes the alcoholic beverage) for the individual be sold, served, provided with an alcoholic beverage is abviously intoxicated to the extent that he (provision) presents a clea danger to himself and others. The promblem is how do we know? For example, there is a man that stands at 5'8 and weighs 160. Then you have another man that stands at 6'3 and weighs 250. They both fo into a bar together and they sit down at the bar and order Long Island Ice Tea's. Now the first thought that comes to your mind is ,"I better slow the little guy down because this drink has 4 different liquors and he'll probally try to keep up with his buddy?" Which dos happen they wait for each other to finish and order another round together. Now the bartender notices that the little guy is always waiting on the big fellow. So the bartender tries to slow them down, but they say they are all right and he gives them their last drink. Then cuts them off, they both leave together and I get a call that night. The big man had got in the car alone and got on a major wreck. Later I found out that this man hadn't drunk an ounce of liquor in almost a year. His buddy, on the other hand, is known at other bars as a big drinker. Now, how am I supposed to know that? I only gave them 3 drinks in 45 minutes but you have to take in consideration how long it takes for the liqour to actually hit or take affect of the drinker. That even ranges from one person to another. The State does believe that there are things you can do.

If the state thinks that it is so easy to tell if someone is too intoxicated, then they need to work a bar. There is a couple suggestions that they will give you. The first thing that they tell you about is the "Double Back Law," which is where you say that every drink you serve a certain person, you should watch the person twice as long as it takes you to make the drink. Which basically means that if it takes you two minutes to make a drink, you should keep your eyes on that person for about five minutes before you give the person another drink. The reason behind this is so you can observe the person before you give him another drink. The problem with this is, alcohol does not affect a person in two minutes or three minutes, instead it takes at least 20 to 30 minutes to actually hit a person. Unless you are serving them shots, then it doesn't take a brain to figure out 10 shots is the limit. Most people are not at a bar for more then a half an hour or so. One of the other suggestions that is given is to feed them because it is supposed to help slow their drinking down because they are suffering there face instead of throwing drinks down. This would be a great idea. Usually it takes at least 15 minutes to serve them their food. By that time the customer has already been there 20 to 25 minutes. Like I mentioned before they are already starting to feel it, along with the drinking and eating with a buzz. That is the problem with these two suggestions, there are too many things that can still go wrong along the way, but the State doesn't care. They want to hold drink serves in general responsible for others actions.

Do you want to be responsible for me, especially when you are not around? I do truly do believe that you wouldn't want to be responsible for what I did on Saturday night. Or would you? I think that it is funny that our government and our parents raised us to take responsiblity for our own actions and then they want to say, "But let's make an exception to this." It seems that this shouldn't happen, but with our government it seens like, "We can do it, but you can't." The mind grabber is you can't questions it. I wish that the State would stay on a straight line. I really do believe that we shouldn't be responsible for someone else's actions, but the State does, only in some situations though.

The reason why I feel so strong about this subject is because I was a bartender for almost 8 months at a sports bar down on 6th street. I don't like the fact that I am responsible for some body that I really don't know. Which brings the fact that I personally have a hard time telling if somebody is drunk at my bar. The reason it was hard was because most of the people that came into my bar were the average age of 30 to 55, and most were educated. They are referred to other bartenders as "experienced drinkers." Most of these men and women always were acting professional, not to mention most of the time with co-workers or clients. This means that my clients were always acting on their best behavior. You could say my bar was a higher-class bar than where more wealthy people came to, and could still act very sober when suspected they weren't. That brings me to the point that they were usually older. These men/women probably that I was serving have been drinking at bars for at least 15 years all the way up to 30 - 40 years at bars, so they were pretty good at covering it up because they know how to react to the liquor. These people are too hard to spot, so how am I supposed to be responsible for them. At times, a regular customer would come in and say that they had way too much to drink, and I couldn't tell, yet I would serve some of them daily. I would ask because I basically kwew my regular's limit. They would respond with things like "I didn't get to lunch today because I was too busy," or " I took some medication because of the flu." Like I have mentioned before how am I suppose to know these things. It is not like they have to give a resume before they come in every time and you can't expect that.

I totally disagree with the fact that bars, bartenders, and waiters should be responsible for the people they have just served once they leave. There are too many variable in drinking like height, weight, how often you drink, what you drink, how fast, if you have eated lately, or simple if you are under medication. Maybe someday the State will do the same thing they say. It truly does come down to these simple facts.