Property Developers Push for Open Drinking on City Streets

Legal intoxication vs Obviously intoxicated is a hard to tell when dealing with infrequent drinkers and active drinkers. Iowa: Tougher alcohol-serving laws likely will face fierce resistance

Robert Pomplun
Servingalcohol.com

If you tested every patron's BAC content leaving a local bar, casino, or nightclub, at the closing time what is the chance they are over .08 and legally intoxicated? How many people will want to be a bartender in Iowa? It is not easy to observe signs of possibly impaired patrons with very high alcohol tolerance. Ten /10 percent of the populace consumes close to 70% of the alcohol produced. When the legal drinking BAC went from .10 to .08 for intoxicated driving /women were arrested 40% more frequently. You will start to arrest smaller people and women more frequently. People will travel to other states to avoid a law that is very hard to enforce causing more arrests and less control. Impaired driving is occurring as frequent as DWIs in most states. Are you going to arrest the people that sell cell phones for causing distracted driving? Iowa has some great laws that allow police to check bars nightly alcohol business frequently. Does this mean police may have higher responsibility once they enter bars at night?  Are police then going to arrest the patron for illegal public intoxication and bartender for serving them also? Will you have less jail space available. Managers have to make sure all server have continual and going checks of their patrons before and during alcohol service. How does this law effect patrons that were served elsewhere but have entered into your establishment but not showing signs of possible impairment?  Active drinkers consume 70% of the alcohol produced. The normal person is not a active consumer of alcohol. You have to immediately deal with
what employee's observed and protect patrons from themselves. Training servers to care increases patron trust and their income. Patrons come back to servers they trust. What is going to happen in college towns with enforcement controls toward public intoxication. Legal intoxication vs obviously intoxication at .08 is an easy law  to pass but hard to enforce.

Iowa: Tougher alcohol-serving laws likely will face fierce resistance

Source: Des Moines Register

Kathy A. Bolten 

November 8, 2016

Iowa's restaurants and bars likely will oppose efforts to step up enforcement of a state law that makes it illegal to serve alcohol to someone who is intoxicated, the president for the state restaurant association said.

Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said her group opposes any new mandates aimed at those who serve alcohol in retail establishments, saying the state's laws already are overly harsh toward bars and restaurants.

A statewide coalition tasked to find ways to reduce impaired driving in Iowa has proposed that Iowa require those who serve alcohol in retail establishments be trained to identify people who are intoxicated.

A Register review of state data shows that since 2009, only 14 Iowa establishments have been cited for serving alcohol to inebriated patrons.

Officials say more people are getting pulled over for OWIs every year. Statistics are also showing a sharp rise in the rates among females. In 2015, 38 percent of Iowa traffic fatalities were attributed to impaired driving.

Rising worries over intoxicated driving

In recent months, there has been growing concern over intoxicated drivers on Iowa roads.

The Register has reported that the state's drunken drivers are more intoxicated and killing more people. And Iowa has made little headway in reducing the percentage of repeat drunken drivers.

A fiery March 26 crash on Interstate 80 that killed two Des Moines police officers, their prisoner and a drunken driver traveling the wrong way brought those concerns to a head, and prompted Gov. Terry Branstad to push a Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau-led coalition to develop a comprehensive strategy to prevent and reduce impaired driving.

The group has proposed that Iowa implement the Place of Last Drink program and is encouraging law enforcement agencies, through sting operations, to crack down on establishments that serve alcohol to intoxicated patrons.

But Dunker said such steps would go too far. She said Iowa law already stipulates that servers cannot provide alcohol to a patron if they either "knew or should have known someone would become intoxicated."

"That is something that is almost impossible to train to," Dunker said. "Training materials don't train that the owner should have known. They train visible or obvious intoxication."

Iowa has more than 6,000 eating and drinking establishments that in 2015 had more than $3.6 billion in sales, according to the restaurant association. The restaurant and beverage industry is the second-largest private sector employer in Iowa, with more than 145,000 workers.

Dunker said "our industry is very committed to training and education of servers." But mandated training "is not something we have been in support of as an industry," she said.

The advantage of mandatory training

Others, though, have differing opinions.

"We need to look at how these people are getting to the point of intoxication," said defense attorney Matthew Lindholm, whose office is in West Des Moines.

Lindholm said increasing penalties for intoxicated drivers hasn't changed habits. But, "If we start holding some of these establishments responsible, then maybe we can start effectuating some real change."

Patrick Hoye, the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau's chief, said the impaired-driving coalition looked at several broad categories as it searched for ways to deter people from drinking and driving, including prevention.

"Some states mandate server training, and they've seen some good results," Hoye said. "We think if (the wait staff) are trained, they can spot (intoxicated patrons) easier."

About 60,000 people are certified in Iowa with a program called Training for Intervention ProcedureS or TIPS, according to the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division's website. The training, which focuses on preventing intoxication, drunken driving and underage drinking, is not mandated.

However, businesses cited for over-service have at times been ordered to train employees in the program.

Taking aim at dram shop laws

Dunker said until Iowa changes its dram shop liability laws, her group likely would oppose any type of crackdown on establishments that serve alcohol.

"We're being held to a standard - the restaurant and bar group - that no other alcohol sales group in Iowa is held to," Dunker said.

For example, the person who sells miniature bottles of liquor at grocery stores isn't expected to "know" under Iowa law that someone could become intoxicated, she said.

For the past three years, Dunker's group has been unsuccessful in its efforts to change Iowa's dram shop liability law, which establishes the liability of an establishment that sells alcohol to a person who subsequently kills or injures others.

In the coming legislative session, the group plans to try again, she said.

"We want to change that standard to something you can actually teach, such as obviously intoxicated or visibly intoxicated," Dunker said. If that was accomplished, the group would be "much more open to conversations about enforcement or training mandates."

Sgt. Paul Parizek, Des Moines police department spokesman, said enforcing Iowa's law prohibiting serving alcohol to intoxicated individuals is difficult.

"How do we prove someone over-served the offender arrested for drunken driving," Parizek said. "Was he over-served here or somewhere else? That's going to be a problem, and it's going to be time-consuming to investigate."

Few businesses cited for over-service

The difficulty in proving over-service of alcohol is likely part of the reason why so few establishments have been cited for the offense.

Just 14 businesses licensed to serve alcohol in Iowa have faced sanctions since 2009 for providing wine, beer or liquor to an intoxicated person, a Register review of status reports filed by the Alcoholic Beverages Division shows.

Iowa has 5,682 businesses licensed to serve alcohol, according to the state agency.

The Register review found that since 2009:

.Five Iowa bars were fined $1,000 each and had their liquor licenses suspended for seven days.

.Four other bars had their liquor licenses suspended for 12 to 28 days, but faced no fines.

.Five casinos were cited for over-service. In May, the Rock Hotel & Casino in Sioux City was fined $21,000 after it was found to have over-served patrons twice in 2015. The casino's servers were required to undergo training.  

In addition, Catfish Bend Casinos in Burlington was fined $30,000 in 2015 for three violations; Diamond Jo - Worth Casino in Northwood was fined $15,000. Servers at both casinos were required to undergo training.

The Wild Rose Casino in Clinton has been cited three times since 2011; it was fined a total of $30,000 for its first two violations. Officials are in negotiations over the third citation, an agency spokesman said. The agency is also negotiating with Bettendorf's Isle of Capri Casino over three violations in 2014.

John Lundquist, an Iowa assistant attorney general who works closely with the Alcoholic Beverages Division, said few businesses have been cited for over-service because it's difficult to prove that bartenders or servers knew patrons were drunk when they sold them alcohol.

That means patrons must have shown recognizable signs of intoxication such as staggering, have red or watery eyes, or slurred speech, he said.

"To hold that establishment liable for something they really weren't on notice as an issue is difficult to make stick," he said.

Lundquist said ensuring Iowa establishments that serve alcohol follow the state's laws is a public safety issue.

"I'm glad the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau is taking a look at this to see if we can't get the message out and find better ways to ensure people are not over-served and going out and causing harm," he said.