Legal Question

[Violent_Red]

If by chance a under age person gets into your nightclub / lounge and proceeds to drink and gets in his/her car and crashes or hurts them or someone else is that the responsibility of the club owner, even if all the percautions were taken to ensure that underage people were not granted access to the facility?

[ministry]

YES !

[Violent_Red]

So this a risk that every club owner has to take when operationg a night club/bar ect? Is there any leg to stand on if this dose happen or is the club basicly screwed? What is the best way to stop underage kids from getting in other than a great ID check. Im sure you all know how good the fake id's are getting and how under age kids use there brother/ sisters ID.

[ministry]

you can take a few steps to limit your liability like using id machines to help with bad id's but you need to have a good guy or gorl on your doors to help you keep you clean. and yes there are some that do get by and for that there is not much you can do and the police know who the good bars and bad bars are for id's.

[hakujin]

How screwed the club will be is dependent on the state. Some are more lenient than others. But a dead minor usually screws everyone.

If a minor goes to club "A" and gets drunk, then goes to club "B" and has a Pepsi, gets into a car accident and dies, it will usually be assumed that the minor got drunk at club "B".

One way a club can protect itself is to limit the amount of "carry away" materials it has in the club that have the club name. Don't have matches, bevnaps, or ticket stubs with the club name. If a minor wraps his car around a tree and has a match book with the Club "A" logo on it, it gives the police a starting point.

This may sound cold hearted, but you have to consider that the minor may not have even gotten those matches on the same night he died. This isn't an actual 'defense', but every bit helps.

[Violent_Red]

Is dose sound a little morbid but one has to understand that owners have to look out for there well being also. If something like the death of a minor or injury occured and it was traced back to your place and lawsuits were formed, wouldent this then be turned over to yur insurance after that it was proven that you have done everything to stop minors from getting in ?

[hakujin]

The insurance company doesn't want to pay. That's your first problem. They're going to do everything they can to get out of paying. If a club served a minor and the minor died, the first thing the insurance company is going to say is that the club broke the law when serving the minor and there's a "no illegal activities" clause in the insurance contract. Serving a minor is illegal. It differs state by state, but the law says "don't serve minors". It usually doesn't say "do your best to not serve minors."

That's the worst case scenario. But even if the insurance company pays, you still have to deal with the local licensing board. A minor dying is a great excuse for them to pull your license...especially if there have been previous infractions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that generally speaking, the deck is stacked against the liquor license holder.

[Violent_Red]

Thanks for all the input, bottom line make sure you dont serve minors.