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All twelve of us assigned 80% responsibility to the bar owner for not running an orderly house. The consensus was if one makes money selling alcohol she is held to a standard.
So as you can see a time may come when Earl the Pearl and eleven other good people decide what the law says.









I'm good with whatever laws our societies want in regards to bars and serving alcohol in public, but I wish people would form their opinions thinking more then one move ahead.
Societies, economics, complex systems in general work in the ways they do because of give and take. If you want someone else to give you more of something, there is bound to be some taking too, some way in which some one else pays for it.
btw before continuing... the bars may close and put everyone out of work too:
http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/21...rockett-street
Many have argued that while individually large settlement health care lawsuits have had no impact, that collectively we are all paying for them in the form of higher health care insurance. Also some specialists working with low probability procedures and high risks (e.g., child birth) increasingly are changing specialties, leaving the remainder to charge much higher fees.
This is the way economics works. Someone receives and someone pays, even if it just means insurance companies laying people off work to cover lost profits due to paying out settlements.
There are always gives and takes and looking ahead a move or two is not super hard. Just ask, if this becomes a trend, what are the long term possible outcomes of dram shop laws and settlements that make bar owners increasingly responsible?
Maybe that they can't serve more then one well metered drink every hour. Want a second? Tough. Law says no, even if you are not driving, because you MIGHT act like an ass later, hurt someone, and the bar owner is 80% responsible if you do. Neato.
Maybe we will see fewer stand-alone a bars because none can afford the risk of just serving drinks at the rate they need to serve to be profitable. A trend I've already seen, bars exist within other venues (restaurants, strip clubs, casinos) and drinks become supplemental income rather then the main source of income.
Maybe bars start charging 2x-3x as much for a drink to pay for insurance plans to cover lawsuits?
Maybe that more restaurants just stop serving alcohol since the risk of an expensive lawsuit isn't worth it? So those of us who drank responsibly in public find it more difficult or costly. Etc.
We refuse to believe such patterns because we want what we want in the moment, but trends start out small and gain a life of their own for reasons. For example, should it become significantly profitable to file lawsuits against bar owners, win, for whatever mis-deeds an individual commits, you can bet that the lawyers will swoop in and do everything they can to encourage lawsuits. And you can bet should that become increasingly the trend, we will all feel some impact, including some we may end up not liking.
Maybe the end result is positive. There is a reasonable argument that alcohol is just a recreational drug, we don't need it to survive, and it does as much harm as good. I'm fine with that, just as long as those in favor of more punishing dram shop laws don't want their cake and eat it too (i.e., if you are over drinking in public then STOP it for everyone's benefit).
I promise not to look down on you if you can laugh at lawyer jokes.- minnow





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