Bartender training draws hefty crowd

Nick Ianniello

Mineral Independent

Bartenders and bar owners from three different bars in Mineral County showed up for a training in Superior last week to learn how to be safe and follow the law when serving alcohol.

“It was a huge success. We didn’t’ really expect this many people to show up,” said Environmental Prevention Program Officer Denyse L. Traeder.

Traeder works with the Montana Community Change Project to help promote responsible alcohol use in Mineral County, and along with Ivy McGowen of Lake County she set up the free program for bar tenders and bar owners.

Bar owners Joe Hendricks from the Nugget in Superior, Ken Jasper from the Talking Bird in St. Regis, Joe Cantrel from Loco Joes in St. Regis and Ronna LaPierre from the Four Aces Bar in Superior and Trax Bar in Alberton along with 21 bar tenders showed up for the training.

Traeder said that through the organization of the program she found out that Lucky Lil’s and Lincoln’s Silver Dollar Bars each do their own bar tender trainings, and including those two bars, now one third of all bar tenders in Mineral County have been trained in similar programs.

The program taught bar tenders how to avoid over serving customers by suggesting alternatives to alcohol such as food, or non alcoholic beverages.

They also focused on signs that a person has had too much to drink, such as slurred speech, overly loud speech, glassy eyes and loss of motor skills.

Traeder said if most women drink more than two drinks in an hour they will become legally intoxicated. She added that for men it depends largely on body and muscle mass, so it is difficult to have a set drink amount for what makes men legally intoxicated.

“We also talked about how with some people it’s really hard to tell if they’ve had too much to drink,” Traeder said.

She said that they encouraged bar tenders to keep track of how much their patrons have had in case they are not showing common signs of intoxication.

Mineral County Sheriff Hugh Hopwood also spoke to the group to encourage them to count on the police to help with intoxicated patrons.

“We need to rebuild those relationships between the deputies and the bar owners and bar tenders so that when the bar tenders need the deputies they’re there,” Traeder said.

Hopwood told bartenders that his deputies would likely be checking in with them more often in the months to come to make sure things are running smoothly at their bars. He added that having deputies waiting outside of bars to catch drunk drivers is not a great use of their time and he would rather count on the bar tenders to make sure people are not driving home drunk.

Traeder said that the group also worked on setting up some bar policies about overserving that would protect the bartenders in case of an incident.

“Not a lot of bars have policies in place which is surprising,” Traeder said.

She added that bartenders should keep a log and if someone comes into the bar already intoxicated they should record it. Since bar tenders can be held liable if one of their patrons injures themselves or someone else, it is important for bar tenders to note who they have and have not served.

“We just really focused on teaching them to cover their butts. In Montana you can be held legally responsible if someone that is legally intoxicated from drinks at your bar injures someone or themselves,” Traeder said.

The program also covered how to tell whether or not an person’s identification card was fake, using a black light and other techniques to examine them.

“There are a bunch of different checks that are built into driver’s licenses that can help you figure out whether or not they’re fake, but if you don’t know what to look for then you wouldn’t know if someone just handed you one,” Traeder said.

Traeder said that a big part of the program was to make sure that bartenders understood the laws surrounding their jobs and the consequences of not taking them into account when serving alcohol.

“A lot of times bartenders in Montana don’t even know the law. So how can you expect someone to uphold the law if they don’t know what it is,” Traeder said.

Traeder has been working to help promote responsible alcohol use in Mineral County for over a year now and she said that this program should go a long way to helping bar tenders curb drunk driving.

“We also need to not kid ourselves,” Traeder said “Alcohol is legal and if you’re over 21 it’s legal for you to be in a bar and you have the right to drink. And as a bartender, they’re there to serve alcohol, that’s their job. But we need to be realistic. If you’re going to keep serving someone and you know they’re drunk you need to try to find them a way home from the bar.”