I agree with the posters who are urging you to hire a college kid or someone older to do the bartending for you. As has been mentioned, a 14 year old, no matter how mature he may be, lacks the ability to judge if a guest has had to much to drink. Attempts by him to cut them off may lead to a pat on the head, and “run along little boy” attitude from the guest. Further, should anything happen to the guest on their way home (God forbid), you, as the host, would be held ultimately accountable, your son included, since he was the bartender. Is this a position you want to put your son in? Grabbing the occasional beer from the fridge for a guest is one thing, but making him responsible for furnishing alcohol to 35+ guests who are capaple of mixing their own drinks is something completely different.
Personally, I would get someone else, or I would simply provide a mixing station for the guests to serve themselves.
I don’t think Dinsdale is looking to his son to be cop and AA counselor. He’s quite capable of making those judgements. The kid is simply going to be making the drinks. If someone looks obviously looped, he can let his dad know. Also, Dinsdale said he purposely weeded out his friends who are habitual over-imbibers, so we’re looking at a group that already exercises responsible drinking (at least, that’s what I got out of it).
All I’m saying is that I think it’s a bad idea. His son may be fully capable of holding his own behind the bar, I don’t know. But he’ll be responsible for more than simply making drinks. It comes with the job. And giving a 14 year old that sort of responsibility is not a good idea, IMHO. There’s just too much at stake.
If Dinsdale wants to get Dinskid involved, put him in charge of keeping the bar stocked (he’s not serving any drinks, therefore, not responsible for any unfortunate incidents which may occur), arranging appetizer trays and walking around offering them to guests, serving coffee and tea, and being more of a maitre’d or busboy than a bartender.
I was mixing drinks at age 14. It wasn’t a big deal. But then I was drinking then, too. My parents knew it. They were sitting right there.
The only thing that I could possibly see as a problem is if you are paying him, it maybe against the law for him to serve alcohol. I don’t know where you live, but here it is illegal to employ a person under the age of 18 to serve alcohol.
The person serving the drinks is the person who can be held responsible if the drinker goes out and kills someone. I wouldn’t want to lay that on my 14-year-old child.
Dinsdale, have you thought about just having your guests make their own drinks? Just put out the supplies and people can help themselves. Or ask one of them to play bartender, or have a few take turns. If the drinks are mainly in pitchers anyway, why does there have to be a separate person available at all times to pour them?
Or instead of you and your wife serving food and clearing away plates, you and your wife make the drinks and have your son take over the food duties.
When I was about 14 I was drinking in alcoholic drinks. And so was practically everyone else in my class. In Holland you can legally drink in a bar at 16, but younger kids have been getting away with it for years. I really don’t get this American/English/Irish etc. hysteria about underage drinking. We all did in Holland and the country is not a pit of alcoholism and general ruin. In fact, it’s doing rather well. I don’t mean to rant and if you feel your kid should stay off the booze for a while, that’s your decision as a parent but not letting the kid even serve drinks seems to go really far in the eyes of this furriner.
The only thing that would worry me is that, judging from some of the reactions, your friends might not see it the same way. Now, I’m not someone who tends to be overly worried about what other people think, but then again, you might want to preserve the peace at a party and hire a neighbourhood kid or something like that. Enjoy the party.
Surely this only applies to actual bars and pubs? I find it hard to believe that at a private party at someones house that anyone other than the drinker is responsible for their actions. It seems pretty bizarre that the responsibilty is shifted to the server (I accept that a bar should hold some responsibility) espescially when it is a party in a house. Can’t anyone take responsibilties for their actions these days? Is this the result of Americas seemingly lawsuit driven society?
No, it doesn’t apply only in commercial establishments. I find it bizarre too that drunks can blame their actions - after drinking by their own choice - on someone else. But that’s the way it is. Have you never heard any news stories of someone leaving a party and having an accident and the hosts being questioned as to why they let a drunk person leave their house? I’m not saying that a life sentence is going to be handed out to the hosts but they can be held responsible, and they can definitely be sued by the drinker (whether legitimate or not, it’s a pain in the ass to deal with) civilly.
Why should a bar accept some responsibility? I know I fooled, in my younger days, MANY bartenders into thinking I was fine when I was smashing drunk. It’s not all that difficult. Why should a bartender who might be dealing with hundreds of patrons have to be responsible for determining who is drunk and who isn’t, all in a span of a few seconds? Why should a bar owner who might not have even been on the premises when the person was drinking? How about a group of servers who each served someone a drink and didn’t know he was also getting drinks from everyone else?
I don’t think that makes sense either but if they’re going to hold employees of a bar responsible for it, there’s no reason not to hold private hosts responsible. They probably have a much better shot at seeing exactly what each person is drinking and knowing how their behavior has changed from what it normally is - much different from a bartender who has no idea what Person X’s normal personality is or where he was before arriving at the bar or how much he had to drink before the bartender started serving him.
“A minor may be issued a citation for possession of an alcoholic beverage on private property.” and “Consumption of an alcoholic beverage need not occur for an arrest to be made and a citation issued to a minor; the mere possession of an alcoholic beverage is a violation.”
Even if the kid isn’t drinking he can be fined.
This isn’t about fear of alcohol, it’s following US law, however draconian that law may be.
My parents let me try all their different drinks when I was a kid (breaking the law everytime they did so). It told me that alcohol wasn’t this mystifying substance I should do anything to get my hands on but a simple drink. Some was good, some was awful but if I bided my time I would get to drink all I wanted without fear of the cops.
I don’t doubt your faith in your son at all, but if something does happen to a guest who was overserved, even if there are no legal consequences, a 14 year old is old enough to know/think that if he had done something different maybe that person wouldn’t have gotten killed/hurt/thrown in jail. That’s not a responsiblity I would put on my kid.
I’m not trying to be overly paranoid here, I’m just putting a worst case out there to consider before deciding whether or not to let your kid serve.
Dinsdale, you have a child older than the son in question, right? How much older? Would it be more appropriate to have her bartend instead of your son? I’m 19 and I can’t imagine my parents asking me to bartend at a party; I think we’d both be uncomfortable. I’m an ardent teetotaller, though, and that definitely shades the situation.
In Wisconsin, you still only have to be 18 to bartend, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll be hired to do it in an “authentic” bar. You’ll probably end up running the beverage cart on a golf course or something along those lines.
No, hon, this applies to private parties, too. There was a case in Kentucky some years back where some kids used fake id’s to buy booze and take it to fraternity party where they drank a great deal, then wrecked and killed themselves driving home. Their families sued the fraternity for wrongful death, and WON. Even though these kids had deliberately broken the law to obtain alcohol, and even though the fraternity was checking ID’s to screen out underage drinkers, the court found that the kids were only 45% responsible for their own deaths. The fraternity was found 55% responsible for the deaths, for having these two dipsticks to consume the alcohol that ultimately killed them at its party.
And, no, people are often NOT willing to accept responsibility for their actions, which is, IMO, why American society has become so litigious. If it’s not my fault I’m a dumbass, it must be somebody else’s fault, and by God, that somebody’s gonna pay.
Yes, there is. In England just read the papers. Full of concern and moral outrage about 16 year olds being caught drinking gasp shock horror Cider. I lived in England 5 years, by the way, until 2001.
As for Ireland (where I am living presently), they are now banning kids from even being in pubs after 9. This might make sense in inner city Dublin, it certainly does NOT makes sense in rural areas where pubs function broadly as community centres as well as watering holes. Everyone knows each other there anyway and the kids are well looked after. As in England the press continously and irritatingly goes on and on about children’s drinking problems.
Sorry to go off topic, by the way, but this really gets my goat.
I agree with everything Pookah said, but I don’t think the hysteria in Ireland over actual underage drinking (as opposed to mere underage presence in pubs) is entirely unwarranted. In inner city Dublin - and I’m sure in lots of other places around the country - there are very serious problems with anti-social behaviour involving tanked-up kids. Of course it’s all just part of a wider socio-economic problem and even without the alcohol these kids wouldn’t be angels but I definitely think it makes them worse.
Just FYI, the Dram Shop Act - the laws that say that the person serving the alcohol can be held responsible for the drinker’s actions - goes back about a hundred years. It’s not a new thing that people are taking advantage of in the U.S.'s litigious society.
I read something yesterday, which I can’t find right now, that since 1950 or 1955 (I can’t remember the exact year) 80% of Dram Shop cases have been decided in favor of the plaintiffs.
Really, Dinsdale, switch the duties - you and your wife or an adult guest can make the drinks and your son can serve the food and clean up. Why take a chance?
I know I’m going to get shit on for this, but I would hate to have a party and be completely unable to enjoy it because I’m worrying about how not to live like a human being. Sometimes you have to have a good time, and sometimes what’s really good is a sense of family, community, and inclusive parenting.
I, personally, would take the risk: I, personally, would not be worried about my friend drinking too much, getting killed in an accident, and getting sued by the family.
(As an aside, I would guess that few Dram Shop cases are filed against friends by responsible, middle-class, middle-aged people… the parents of kids at a frat party may well consider their children to be victims, but you would have to have some pretty shitty friends…)
Actually, KC, your friends wouldn’t be the ones filing the suit, as filling in court documents are rather difficult when one is dead. It would be their families, and how many of your friends do you know their families well enough to say, “Eh, they wouldn’t do that”?
And nobody’s suggesting that they spend their entire party slaving away unable to enjoy anything, or mail the kids out of state to prevent them being exposed to the party, or anything else that would preclude a good time or sense of family or community. People have merely been pointing out aspects that the OP might not yet have taken into consideration in deciding whether or not it’s a good idea to let a 14 year old child tend bar.
How about a compromise. Dinsdale collects the car keys at the start of the night and passes them out at the end. The kid can serve everybody however much they want, as the drunk guest isn’t going to kill anybody if he doesn’t have his car keys.
misbunny, forgive me if I misread your posts, but you seem more concerned with the kid being blamed for any destruction that the people he served cause. I would posit that the destruction is the result of being drunk and irresponsible, and would happen no matter who served the people in question, and again the more reasonable response is to take action to prevent the destruction from happening, rather than shifting the blame to Dinsdale or another bartender.