Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 3, 2009
State-mandated course teaches responsible service of alcohol
Samara Litvack
A bartender most of his college career, Chris Phillips learned quickly how much money a bar can produce. Making fast cash and working long hours soon caught up with him, though, and when a bar he tended kept getting fined for their employees not being properly licensed by the state, he volunteered to become a certified trainer.
“I was around 30 years of age then, so I looked at it as an opportunity to get out of the bar business, where I didn’t have to work till 3 a.m.,” he says. “I started working toward that. I built the business up and then eight years later, I’m here.”
Today, Phillips is an independent contractor. Through his company, Alcohol Intervention and Management, he teaches five-hour courses in Nashville and Chattanooga that servers and bartenders in the state of Tennessee are required to take every five years.
“The state wants everybody to know how to recognize signs of intoxication, what obligations you have to society and by law to your patrons and to the establishment,” says Phillips. “They also want you to have the competence to know when to stop service and when to continue service.”
Phillips breaks down this state mandate into three categories: Servers and bartenders must know who they can serve and who they cannot; under what circumstances they can serve those people; and how to discontinue service through basic customer service skills.
That foundation begins with a basic lesson in terminology. To completely understand everything that is covered in the course, participants must first have a thorough understanding of the phrasing.
One of the first things Phillips discusses are “behavioral cues,” or the signs that identify whether someone is intoxicated – inhibitions, judgment, reactions and coordination. (If a timid lady enters your bar and after a couple of drinks she is hooting and hollering, chances are she is past her legal limit.)
Then, he moves on to “absorption rate factors,” or the specific influencing factors in a person’s rate of intoxication. These can include size, gender, rate of consumption, strength of drink, food intake and even other drugs they may have in their system.
“Servers need to know this so they understand what’s going on with the client throughout the drinking process,” he says. Even something as simple as consuming caffeine with alcohol can have an effect on absorption, as caffeine causes alcohol to stay in the body longer.
Phillips then teaches the class the “definition of a drink.” To the average person, a drink is simply a container filled with liquid a person plans to consume. To the server or bartender, it is much more specific.
“I always tell my class the definition of a drink is the amount of alcohol the body will get rid of in one our,” says Phillips. “Those measurements are an ounce of 100-proof spirits, a 12-ounce beer and a 5-ounce glass of wine.”
These standard rules of thumb are learned so servers and bartenders can safely count the number of drinks a client has consumed. After this basic concept is taught, Phillips puts his students to the test.
“We help them start practicing these things,” he says. “We go through and we give them a receipt and we show them.”
If a patron orders a 16-ounce beer, he is consuming more than the 12 ounces his body can process in an hour. At one 16-ounce beer an hour over a three-hour timeframe, he will have essentially consumed four “drinks” in three hours, and his body will process the beers more slowly.
While the body can process 5 ounces of wine in an hour, most restaurants serve it in 6- or 7-ounce glasses. This is something a server or bartender should be aware of if he wants to be a responsible server of alcohol. Similarly, a full bar of liquors can vary from 40 proof (or 20 percent alcohol) to 100 proof (50 percent alcohol), and many mixed cocktails include more than one liquor. When calculating how much alcohol a person is consuming, each of these factors must be taken into consideration.
Next, Phillips covers state laws, rules and regulations. This, he says, is where his classes start getting interesting. Students have already heard restaurant myths and legends about what is or isn’t legal in the state of Tennessee. Phillips takes this portion of the course to clear up any falsehoods.
“We basically just go through and say this is what’s legal here in Tennessee,” he says. “You’ve got to be 21 to drink. You can’t serve anyone who’s obviously intoxicated. You can’t serve anyone who is not of sound mind. You can’t serve anyone who is a known, habitual abuser of alcohol and drugs.”
With those four “don’ts” in their pockets, servers can more easily make judgments regarding the legal aspect of the alcohol industry. What is not so easy, however, is refusing service to someone who falls into one of those categories.
To practice, Phillips sets up different scenarios and interacts with his class in a “what would you do” type format. He offers tips to help diffuse situations, or to keep them from ever becoming confrontational in the first place.
“Don’t raise your voice,” he says. “Don’t use a battleship to sink a canoe. Speak clearly so your client understands you. Don’t be confrontational. Always ask for help. Use ‘I’ statements, not ‘you’ statements.”
While he points out how intimidating these situations can be to handle, Phillips also gives credit where credit is due.
“Servers think on their feet,” he says. “People who don’t work in our industry don’t understand that some of the best servers and bartenders in the world have learned skills that people out in the workforce pay thousands and thousands of dollars to obtain, such as thinking quick on your feet, being able to react to confrontational situations quickly and with a level head, being able to say the right things.
“Even in what I do now, I’m going through sales techniques where we learn scripts and dialogues. We’ve been doing that for years in bartending and serving.”
To close the course, Phillips discusses the consequences restaurant employees face if they choose not to work within state guidelines. Servers and bartenders can face criminal and civil charges, according to Tennessee’s Dram Shop laws, which make them liable if they serve alcohol to anyone
underage or obviously under the influence.
“I have a lot of servers that come in here and say, ‘Well if my clients get drunk, they’ll tip me more’ and I have to prove to them that they won’t,” says Phillips.
“You ask an experienced person, ‘Will he tip me more?’ There’s a 50/50 chance he will or not. And he might walk out on his tab. And there’s also a good chance he’s going to offend somebody around him which means those people are going to pay out earlier, which means you lose your money in the long run. If we appeal to them on a money level, then they’re more likely to do the right thing in the upper level.”
When the class ends, students must pass a test on the course material, which Phillips grades on the spot. If they succeed, they can generally pick up their serving permit within a couple business days. That permit allows that server or bartender to legally serve alcohol in Tennessee for five years, after which they must take the course again to become recertified.
To find out more about the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission and its requirements regarding restaurants
and bars, visit www.tennessee.gov/abc.
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