Every restaurant and hotel in California is repeatedly warned by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (still known to many as the ABC Board) in California, by food and wine attorneys, and by hotel and restaurant attorneys about how dangerous it is for your reputation, income, and obligation to serve alcohol or liquor to a minor. Knowledge of this hazard has recently struck the minds of hotel and restaurant owners in the Coachella Valley cities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, La Quinta, Indio, Coachella and Cathedral City.
But the lesson learned in the Coachella Valley holds true for restaurants and hotels in Long Beach, San Diego, Orange County, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Orange, Costa Mesa, Carlsbad, Santa Monica, Newport Beach, Buena Park. . , the Inland Empire area of Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, and Temecula, and also up the coast to Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo.
In August, two restaurants in the Coachella Valley, one in Rancho Mirage and one in La Quinta, had their liquor licenses suspended for 30 days after serving alcoholic beverages to minors. Both restaurants chose to close and use the time to remodel.
It’s bad enough if the Alcohol and Beverage Control Board catches a restaurant serving alcohol to a minor, but what’s unusual about these two cases is how restaurants were caught and sad what happened to minors.
In the case of the Rancho Mirage restaurant, the minor died in a car accident. In the La Quinta incident, the minor jumped to his death from a pickup truck.
It gets even worse. In the Rancho Mirage restaurant case, the minor was traveling in a car with a friend who had also been drinking but was not a minor. Both were killed when their vehicle hit a curb and flipped over. They had both been drinking at the restaurant. The older of the two had a blood alcohol reading of 0.23. The minor had a blood alcohol reading of 0.12. The legal limit in California is 0.08.
In the La Quinta restaurant incident, the 19-year-old had dinner with his girlfriend, the 22-year-old male driver of the vehicle, the driver’s wife and their two-year-old son.
At some point, it was reported, the truck driver hit his wife. The minor then threatened to jump out of the vehicle if the driver continued to fight with his wife. The minor kept his promise while the truck was driving between 30 and 40 miles per hour.
The La Quinta restaurant was also hit with a two-year probationary period, which if violated could lead to the revocation of its liquor license.
This litany of events does not even consider the number of civil lawsuits that may be filed as a result of these two incidents, the grievance of the families of those killed, or the losses the two restaurants can expect to suffer as a result of inattention. of your employees
When a restaurant or hotel caters to an adult, in California there is generally no liability if that adult is later involved in a drunk driving accident. There are no actions taken by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Not so when the restaurant or hotel serves alcohol to an intoxicated minor. So all bets are off.
