Charge the Bar?

Last summer, in a traffic crash, three young men died after their car burst through a guardrail, ploughed through some trees and wound up in the Joseph River.  The three men drowned; one woman survived.  The Joseph River is in the Muskokas, around Bracebridge north of Toronto.  Cottage country. 

The vehicle had peeled back 30 feet of guardrail and had snapped off some trees at a height of 25 feet along the riverbank.  Alcohol and speed were "definite factors" according to the police.  The group had been up at a cottage, then gone for lunch at a local joint, the Lake Joseph Club. 

On the face it’s just another drinking-driving ten-line story that you can predict will be written three or four times each summer, buried on page 3 of the newspaper. 

This one is different.

On Monday the Ontario Provincial Police laid charges against the Lake Joseph Club directors and 16 employees of the place, under the Liquor License Act.  The charges include allowing drunkenness on the premises and serving liquor to an apparently intoxicated person.  The charges are serious.  So are the moral ramifications. 

The quandary posed is this:  Who is responsible for the crash and deaths? 

Ontario has very strict laws for places that are licensed to serve alcohol.  Managers, servers and security staff have to take a course, called Smart Serve Ontario that teaches the liquor license holder and their staff how to spot and manage those patrons who are intoxicated.  It’s mandatory training and if you don’t pass, you lose your liquor license, or can’t serve.

Every time I’ve gone into a bar, I’ve made the choice to have two or forty-six beers.  I have been refused service for being too drunk.  The server could tell that the End was Near when I ordered a shooter called Windex, which is tequila and Blue Curacao.  I woke up so badly addled that I had to consult a carton of sour cream to obtain an approximation of the current date.

However, in my drinking career, I haven’t driven a motor vehicle while drunk.  I have left the car in a skeevy area, with a note on the windshield for the cops, explaining the situation and asking not be towed.  The car was still there the next morning.  I have climbed into a taxi, without a dollar to my name, asked nicely to be driven home and been driven home.  I have also, unsteadily, walked home, or called someone to come and get me.  Conversely, I have a standing offer with several people that I will come and get them, regardless of hour, if they’re unable to drive.

I’ve been in more than a few bars in my life and have never seen the staff hold down a patron and force them to drink.  I’ve never been in a bar that insisted you get drunk pronto or get out.  I’ve never been in a bar that had a sixteen-drink minimum. 

I have been in bars that comp your soft drinks, coffee (and even your meal) if you’re the Designated Driver.  That’s quite nice and encourages sensible behaviours.  I have seen servers and bartenders discreetly confiscate car keys, or insist on cabs for patrons.  Occasionally voices have been raised, but the patron did not drive, which was the desired result.

Which brings us back to the moral issue.  Are the four people in the crash responsible for their consumption of alcohol and the choice to drive?  Certainly they are.  Nobody held a gun to a puppy’s head and insisted they guzzle it down, or the dog dies.  Nobody stuck a funnel in their mouths and dumped a half-bottle of over-proof rum down their gullets.  If the Lake Joseph Club staff did anything like that, then the charges should stand and the guilty should be sent directly to Hell for an eternity.  No question on that one. 

Should the server or the bar confiscated the car keys?  Unless the group were obviously messed up, how can you tell?  You can’t, unless the driver is trying to put his coat on over his pants, lying on the floor while singing "Who Let The Dogs Out" having consumed a litre of house red. 

Unless we have calibrated, mandatory, police supervised breathalyzers in bars, it is up to the reasonable judgement of the bar staff.  That’s the best we can do.  And, no, I don’t think we should have police with breathalyzers stationed in bars, checking every patron as they leave.  It’s completely impractical; there aren’t enough cops, too many bars and not enough equipment available.

What we do need is the families involved and the police to take a cold look at the situation.  It was a very tragic crash.  Three young men were killed.  They were killed because they chose to drink and drive.  That means the grieving families have to confront something ugly. 

Yes, it does taint the warm memories for the families of their bright eyed boys, the future laid out before them, suddenly brought to a violent end because they chose poorly.  Thirty feet of ripped up guardrail tells me other poor choices were made. 

If you need to point the finger, perhaps the ‘fault’ is with the parents, who didn’t properly teach their children that poor choices can kill you in many, many unexpected and violent ways.  

I’m sorry for their loss, I truly am, but it doesn’t change the reality.

What we need is a coroner’s finding of Death by Bad Choices.