Sometimes I DO encounter the darndest things when I do impact panels. Yesterday morning after we were done a nice lady walked up and told me that she had seen Carol and I at a bar she worked at when we were out with the PC DUI Task Force doing home safe bar visits. This bar had a less than stellar record for coding DUIs. She said that I had given her my card while she was working security. ANYway, she said that they had met with Liquor Control at LEAST once a month and they trained the CRAP out of their wait staff and their patrons STILL managed to get on their lips drunk. They had Uber on speed dial, they would even PAY for the ride sometimes. But she said they couldn’t legally take their keys away. Then she said that the owner sold the place because they were SO uncomfortable serving alcohol and that they felt they were living on borrowed time. This bar also had an outdoor hotdog stand and served food up until pretty much closing time. I always felt that they were doing their best. Hospitality is a WAY hard business to do right. You HAVE to sell alcohol to make money but if you serve TOO much someone is going to get hurt or killed.

THEN I was telling her about ANOTHER bar near there that didn’t seem to care WHAT we, the cops OR Liquor Board said they made NO effort. Then ANOTHER young lady said “You mean *****” . Yes and I told her what a dick the owner and his son were. She said YEAH. That’s where she had been drinking the night she got HER DUI. She said that the son overpours to young women in hopes of “getting in their pants”. She said he was CONSTANTLY putting the make on all the women who go there. JAYSUS. Thought so.

I am NOT saying that ALL bars are bad and don’t care about their patrons. Quite the opposite actually. Carol and I, in the couple years we were VERY active, were seeing a VERY positive trend among the customers. There would be whole tables of young people having a whoop up and one person sitting with a glass of ice water as a designated driver. More and more people are using a cab or UBER type ride services to get TO the bars and then taking them home safely.So there IS a light at the end of this long dark tunnel. And it seems to be getting brighter all the time.