Pregnant women, alcohol, and bar staff

In My Humble Opinion
1

If you were a bartender or a server in a bar, would you serve a pregnant woman alcohol?

I was talking with some friends the other day, among whom were K, a bartender in his mid-20s; and G, a woman in her early 30s. K was describing a time when a group of women–one of whom was visibly pregnant and looked close to her delivery date–came into his bar. They came in for lunch, and to start, they all ordered glasses of wine.

The server, while perfectly willing to serve wine to the other women, didn’t think the pregnant woman should be drinking alcohol, and asked K what she should do. K replied that in his opinion, the pregnant woman could have one glass of wine, but he would cut her off after that.

G piped up. As a woman who had had a child, she noted that when she was pregnant, her doctor had said that an occasional glass of wine in the third trimester wouldn’t hurt, although she had not had any. But it wasn’t K’s call to decide how many (if any) glasses of wine the woman could have, G said; it was between the woman and her doctor to decide what was appropriate.

What eventually happened, K told us, was that the group of women overheard his conversation with the server about whether the pregnant woman should be served, and confronted the manager. They didn’t feel that their pregnant friend’s drinking habits were any of the staff’s business, and that they were leaving. Which they did.

Thankfully, our conversation drifted on to other matters before this discussion could develop into a confrontation between K and G, but I found myself sort of leaning towards G’s side of things–if the woman was old enough to drink (she was), and was not intoxicated when she came in (she wasn’t), then K really had no reason not to serve her, and the matter should not even have been questioned.

But K and his server seemed to feel that they had some responsibility for the pregnant woman’s health. While it is true that under local laws, K can legally refuse to serve anybody who has just walked in (though such an occurrence rarely happens); it is equally true that he is not a guardian of a patron’s personal health (with the sensible exception of cutting people off when they have had too much and calling them a taxi so they don’t drive, of course).

Dopers, what say you? Is it K’s job to serve up the drinks to any and all patrons–including pregnant ones–who are old enough and sober enough to drink? Or is it part of his job to decide how many drinks, if any, a pregnant woman should have?

2

Wait staff can’t serve patrons that are obviously drunk and they are legally responsible for drunken patron’s actions once the person leaves the bar. It is my understanding that this is to prevent the patron from harming others. Now if the law considers a fetus a person open to harm then K would have a responsibility to not enable harm to occur right?

A few problems here that I can see.

  1. Status of the fetus as a person
  2. Medical knowledge by the staff of the impact of drinking on a fetus
  3. Lack of action taken by retailers selling tobacco products to pregnant women

Ultimately it is the mother’s responsibility to provide for her unborn child, though the bar can always choose not serve the person.

3

Well, from a FASD point of view, a single glass of wine in the third trimester isn’t much of a threat at all. In fact, the substantive risk for FASD comes in the first trimester when most pregnancies aren’t visable, so unless K was going to insist on pregnancy tests for all his female patrons, he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

If the woman chose to get drunk, then the waiter or bartender should cut her off as they would any other patron, but policing everything that a visibly pregnant woman does is obnoxious.

4

Though the intentions are noble, K is definitely wrong. The woman should be able to walk into any establishment, order what she pleases and enjoy an outing with her friends whenever she feels the need. It is not up to K, or G to make those decisions for her, plain and simple. As mentioned a glass of wine in the 3rd tri is doing no harm to the unborn child. Drinking until intoxication daily is harmful, but in the end, K was wrong and the ladies should not have been bothered.

5

Yeah, but maybe he was just trying to cover his ass? I mean, we’ve all heard of people getting drunk, in an accident, and suing the bar. WHat if the lady had a premature baby and sued the restaurant?

6

If you were concerned about someone suing you because you served them, bartending is a bad field for you to choose to be in.

Rare beef is bad for pregnant women, would he have refused to serve her a rare steak? Caffeine isn’t good, would he have refused to serve her coffee?

7

I might be wrong, but I don’t think alcohol causes premature babies. I thought the major issue was fetal alcohol syndrome.

I was in a situation like this many years ago. I was around 21, and had a roommate of about the same age. She was VERY pregnant, but she was still a fun-loving 21 year old. After spending many nights home alone, she decided pregnancy be damned, she needed a night on the town. She called a group of her friends and we all went out. She had no intention of drinking at all. She just wanted to get out of the house and do some socializing.

We walked into one of our favorite bars, and the bouncer stopped her, saying “I’ll let you in, but if I see you drinking your ass is out of here.”

We saved him the trouble and left immediately. I was highly offended - it was none of his business if she drank or not. She just wanted to hang out with her friends after not being out for many weeks, and anticipating she wouldn’t be going out once the baby was born. IMO the guy was being an asshole.

8

I’ll buy a round of STFU for the bartender and the bouncer. Follow them with a MYFB chaser.

9

Funny timing. I just hosted a baby shower for a dear friend of mine, who is a pediatrician. All the guests were women from her hospital, and all (except one) also pediatricians of various stripes. Toward the end of the shower, my friend mentioned how much she’s looking forward to eating all the soft cheese she wants, and having a glass of wine.

All the women there agreed that the occasional glass of wine while you’re pregnant does no harm (although the soft cheese is still out). In fact, several of them related anecdotes of themselves or their friends “saving up” time to go and have a glass of wine with friends, snotty looks from servers and fellow patrons be damned. I figure that if a bunch of people whose profession is devoted to healthy children all agree it’s OK, then it’s OK.

K has no business choosing whether or not to serve the woman what she ordered.

10

  1. Soft cheese is bad during pregnancy?

  2. Actually, it IS K’s busines to decide whether or not to serve the woman. A server of alcohol, AFAIK, has the right to refuse to serve the alcohol to anyone they want. I’m not saying that refusing to serve a pregnant woman one glass of wine is the corect decision, but it is K’s decision to make. A bar/restaurant is under no obligation to brign you food or alcohol just because you ask for it, they haev the right to refuse. Granted, sometimes the reasons for refusal are illegal (for instance, you cann’t refuse to serve someone based on their race, religion, etc…) but you can just flat out say ‘I don’t like you jsut because’ and they don’t have to do squat.

Again, I’m not saying that someone refusing to serve one glass of wine to a pregnant woman is correct, but he has the right to do so.

11

Some soft, runny cheeses (brie, camembert) are made from raw milk.

12

While I agree with the consensus that one glass of wine in the third trimester probably isn’t going to hurt anything, I definitely think a bartender should have the right to refuse to serve drinks at his discretion.

13

He does, but we all have the right never to grace his door again.

Bars are a tricky business. If I were managing one, I wouldn’t risk alienating customers. K managed to alienate a whole group of women. Most who are telling the story to their friends. Some of whom won’t patronize his bar.

I have every right to run a business where I give you lousy service, patronize you and insult your ability to care for yourself.

So there are three questions here:

Does he have a legal right not to serve her: sure.

Does he have an ethical responsibility to serve or not serve her? Trickier question. He was certainly well intentioned, but since he obviously knew little about FAS other than “pregnant women shouldn’t drink…”

Does he have an employement obligation to serve her? Depends on the management and ownership of the bar. If it were my bar, I’d fire his ass. But I’m sure many bar owners would back him up.

14

I worked in a restaurant where we had several “regulars” that we knew well–they came to our staff Christmas parties, etc.

One of them got knocked up, but continued to come and toss back a few with the boys on an almost daily basis. Finally, the bartender (also a woman) refused to serve MotherToBe, and gave her a little mini-lecture (from the POV of a friend) about drinking while pregnant. MTB told the owner (also a friend), and Bartender was instructed to shut her trap and give MTB whatever she wanted. Apparently MTB’s story was that since she was an alcoholic, her doctor told her that quitting drinking would be too stressful on the unborn baby. I can’t imagine that being true, or a doctor saying it, but what do I know?

At any rate, I don’t know how the kid (who must be about 12 by now) is going to do on his SATs, but I can tell you that he was the sweetest, most beautiful, healthiest-looking baby I have ever seen. Just gorgeous.

15

Not unreasonable. I can imagine a Dr. saying this - however, they may advise her to cut down.

Regarding her healthy baby: Severe FASD is actually fairly difficult to cause in your fetus - it requires a lot of drinking, with very little nutrition.

However, it’s impractcal to say “Cut down to a reasonable amount” because for an alcoholic who drinks 24 beers a day, perhaps 12 seems reasonable. Additionally, “healthy nutrition” is a bit hard to quantify for someone with diminished capacity (alcoholic) so generally the recomendation is “no alcohol” which will eliminate FASD as a possibility.

That being said, lots of women get pregnant when they’re drunk. Their babies are fine. FASD is a horrible condition, but it’s not quite as straightline causal as people are led to believe.

16

BEER is the answer. High in Folic Acid. Helps to prevent neural tube defects. BEER!!!

17

I would have been really careful raising that issue as the bartender - what if the woman wasn’t pregnant?

18

Soft cheeses and salamis and cold cuts and sushi are to be avoided in pregnancy because of the risk of listeria which can lead to stillbirth. Nothing to do with raw milk at all.

Bartender was in the wrong IMO.

19

Thanks, Primaflora. A nurse told me about the raw milk thing a few years ago and I never bothered to check it out.

20

Wait, wait, wait.

If she was inclined to drink a third glass, doesn’t that mean that she would have been drinking *many, many times * before this?

Stopping her at her third glass so late would hardly have made a difference.