Drunks for dummies

Dealing with drunken fools who don’t know when to quit is the downside to any bar job. Besides cleaning up barf, breaking up fights and propping up staggering patrons, owners and waiters can get sued if overly-lubricated lushes kill or injure someone on their drive home. So Éduc-alcool, an organization dedicated to responsible drinking and made up of the booze industry’s bigger players, including the SAQ, distillers, producers, agencies and the Régie des alcools, courses et jeux, is educating interested parties on how to deal with bothersome boozebags. A four-hour course and a booklet are being offered to restaurants, bars, taverns and sundry drinking establishments as of September.

“It’s a refresher course to remind people of their responsibility, and to teach waiters, bartenders and owners how to behave with these [drunks],” says Jean-Guy Dubuc, Éduc-alcool’s president. “We are offering presentations and discussions of different situations. You don’t deal with someone in a classy restaurant the same way you deal with someone in a tavern.”

Dubuc admits some owners may be tempted to let a party of inebriates keep their binge flowing merrily along, or for waiters to keep serving hoping for fatter tips, but hopes the course will make them aware as to what their liabilities are.

The course is offered in conjunction with the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec. For more information, call Éduc-alcool at 875-7454. :

—Patrick Lejtenyi