Responsible Drinking

Four young people were drinking in a club in Port Carling on July 3, 2008. A few hours later, three of them were killed in an auto accident.

This January, thirty-four charges were laid against the club, its employees and club directors. The club apparently permitted drunkenness on its premises and supplied liquor to intoxicated persons.

While I regret that three people died, I have some questions.

Is it always easy to tell if somebody is drunk? Sure, if somebody is plastered, it is obvious. But visually, especially if a bar is dark, how easy is it to tell? Sometimes you don’t notice until the person is drunk and by that time it is too late.

It didn’t say if the four were drinking beer. If they were, did they order it by the bottle or the pitcher? If they drank pitchers, it is difficult to monitor who is drinking what.

Were all four intoxicated? If not, how would the bartender know which one would be driving? It is not uncommon in Canada for a group to go out drinking with one being the designated driver. When this is the case, do most clubs allow the remaining people to get a bit tipsy, knowing that the sober driver will get them home safely?

How many functions have people getting drunk? Think of the weddings you have attended. How about news conferences or the office Christmas party? Teenagers like to brag about getting pie-eyed at their graduation party. If we tolerate these kinds of activities, how is this any different?

Here are my main questions. Who is ultimately responsible for drinking too much? Do not the four young people bear the majority of the responsibility in this situation? Were they not intelligent enough to know that drinking too much alcohol could cause an automobile accident and death? Why did they drink too much? Were they not mature enough to realize that the driver had had a bit too much or should have stopped drinking before he was inebriated? One person made the decision to get behind the wheel and drive. Three others decided to let that person drive. How can these four make a poor value judgment and not be held responsible while employees, who are also serving other customers, are?

The police say that alcohol and speeding were both responsible for the death. How do we know how much speeding was responsible? Perhaps the driver would have driven too fast regardless of the alcohol.

The sad part is that the lives of the four people in the car were changed forever. Three died and the fourth has to live with the memory of the accident because of a bad decision they made. Unfortunately, sixteen others, some who were not even there when the drinking took place, now have to bear the brunt of four young people not drinking responsibly.

Yes, people working in bars need to be prudent when serving alcohol, but ultimately it is the people drinking it who have to be responsible for what happens. If you aren’t disciplined or adult enough to control your drinking, then you shouldn’t be drinking at all. I say this not only for the safety of the person drinking, but on the potential damage he might inflict on innocent others when he smashes into another car.