Obviously you know your own body best, but a general rule of thumb is that the average body can not metabolize more than one drink per hour. So, unless you’d been drinking those over five hours, you could very well have been legally impaired.
Damn!
I thought this was a baby seal thread.
The word “now” doesn’t apply here. IANAL, but I believe the “dram shop laws”, at least in the United States, go back to the days of English common law, maybe even to the middle ages, for all I know. There’s nothing new, and therefore nothing PC, about the concept.
Maybe you’re a really bad dancer. The bartender saw you dancing and thought you were smashed.
Because nobody is ever even slightly impared at a bar, let alone smashed.
Heh. One time I actually fell asleep at a nightclub. (I don’t drink at all; I was just really tired and probably shouldn’t have been out anyway.) Both times, I got asked by solicitous barstaff if I was okay, but not thrown out or anything.
Being kicked out when you wern’t drunk is a bit harsh.
I’ve been drunk many a time in various clubs and have never been kicked out. Neither have any of my friends. The only time I’ve known someone to be kicked out is when he was sick near the bouncer.
I should have said “twice,” not “one time.”
I was bartending 20 years ago and it was most definitely the responsibility of the bartender to decide if you were drunk and should be served or not, and the bartender could be sued under the Dram Shop Act for serving someone who then caused an accident or injury. It didn’t matter if someone drank 10 drinks somewhere else and had one drink with you: you served something, you were responsible.
Dram Shop Act laws have been in effect for many, many years - way more than 20. 50 years or more is more like it.
Every now and then I serve beers at this summer concert series that DC has. I get many warnings that DC has strict laws against serving intoxicated people, regardless of any liability issues. With the liquor license people crawling around this event, I have no interest in being ticketed and fined a couple hundred bucks for serving a beer to someone who looks like they have had one too many.
I couldn’t care less if folks get staggering drunk as long as they don’t make problems, and I hate being in the position of possibly having to be a buzzkill for someone, but again, I just have no interest in taking the chance of getting dinged for some stupid little offense like giving a beer to the wrong person. (I think I’ve only refused like three people in the few years I’ve been doing this.)
Perhaps there’s a chance that the Alcoholic Beverage Control secret police were in the club that night, and the bartender was just being extra careful.
I went into a late night bar/restaurant once. I tried to get a drink and the bar tender wouldn’t take my ID – tells me she thinks its a fake. It was an out of state ID but this was a college town, so most ID’s were out of state.
I was being stubborn but not beligerent and told her to call the cops so they could see it. She did. I’m not nervous because my ID is valid.
Well, the cops came.
In a normal world, they OK my ID, and she gets me a drink.
Instead, now that she realizes that I’m not worried about the cops seeing my ID, she tells the cops she wouldn’t serve me because I was too drunk and that I wouldn’t leave.
Just gotta hate a person that flat out lies right in your face without even batting an eyelash.
This place, by the way, was in a college town and the only people that ever went there after midnight were drunk revelers looking to score some grub. I have no idea why she just flat-out decided I wasn’t getting served.
So, I don’t know what this adds. Maybe some bartenders just don’t like the look of your face sometime.
Anyway, I’m glad I have a story where I was led out of a bar by the cops.
Sometimes bartenders get a bug up their ass and decide you are the one they are going to ignore. I can’t really blame them too much, I sure wouldn’t want their job.
That was my first thought also, maybe the sweat had something to do with it.
Oh, welby, ya big silly!
Sorry to hear that the ONE bar in Ottawa (pop 1,000,000) that actually is fun to be at on a Sunday night made you leave. Retro night is a blast. I hope you moonwalked right outta there with your head held high and your crotch held low…
Heh, not quite. I might have kicked myself out too, if roles were reversed; I just wasn’t aware of the laws around here, so next time I’ll make sure to ask someone else to get the drinks when I’m coming from the dancefloor.
WTF? Legally impaired? Optihut was not trying to drive, or pratice law. He/She was in a bar. As far as I know there is no legal blood alcohol limit for standing in a bar or dancing. Are you suggesting that nobody should be allowed to get a drink in a bar once their blood-alcohol level is above the drink-driving limit? :rolleyes: That’s what taxis are for.
(Sh)it happens. Blame the lawyers and the lawsuit happy country we have. You beat the odds before, but this time they got you. Nowadays most bartenders and bar owners are held responsible if anything happens because of an intoxicated patron. They must make judgement calls like that all the time. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
Colophon, it doesn’t matter if the customer is inside the bar. The bartender has no way of knowing if the customer plans to leave or what mode of transportation he plans to use. A customer doesn’t even have to leave at all: he can do something like be so drunk that he passes out and smashes his face into a glass, and he can sue the bartender for serving him. Or he can leave and say he’s walking and then get into his car anyway (drunk people are notorious for thinking they’re “fine” when they are not). Or he can actually BE walking and he trips and falls and breaks his neck.
That’s why bartenders still decline to serve people who swear on a stack of Bibles that they aren’t driving. Because whether they are or not doesn’t really matter.
When I was 17, I went to a bar with some people from the gym I worked at. They were all at least 25, so when I got there an hour later than they did I didn’t get carded. That was the night I discovered Jagermeister. I was way beyond trashed. I was falling down all over the place, and all they did was help me find my seat.
In retrospect, I’m quite surprised I didn’t get kicked out.