The Law and You

If you’re hosting a party or reception and alcohol is being served, you could be held liable if a guests causes injury after they leave. You can take steps to protect yourself from this possibility. If you suspect one of your guests is drinking too much, don’t let them have any more. It’s not only the server’s responsibility, it’s also yours. And by all means, don’t let an impaired guest get behind the wheel of a car. Call them a cab, or have a friend or spouse, who is not impaired, drive them to where they need to go.

How We Can Help

DrinkSmart, LLC can provide you with a $4,000 self-administered breath analyzer (Alcohol Alert) that meets the same level of accuracy and consistency law enforcement agencies require for their equipment. You pay for the rental of the machine and the tests are free for the guests, with unlimited use.

What Your Guests Want

We all want to enjoy ourselves when we go to a party or reception. Many times that includes libations. Most people don’t want to drive impaired, but when they do it’s usually out of ignorance. The number one excuse law enforcement officers get when they pull a driver over and their alcohol level is over the limit is, “I didn’t know I was that high.” Many people, if they’ve been drinking, would like to have a way to test themselves to determine if they’re safe to drive.

Self-Testing for Your Guests

Alcohol Alert is state-of-the-art technology for self-monitoring and is easy to use. Your guest just blows through a straw into the machine, and the result is a numerical readout of current blood alcohol content (BAC), and a verbal warning if it indicates potential impairment. Nobody says they want to drive impaired, but most people can’t tell on their own when they’ve had too much. Alcohol Alert doesn’t tell a person whether they can drink or not, it tells them when, for sure, they shouldn’t drive. With this information they can act responsibly, and have their spouse or friend, who is not impaired, drive them to where they need to go. It’s an idea whose time has come.

Liability Issues

Both your guests and you can be liable for what happens after they leave your party. Nothing can add to that liability, but you can take additional steps to reduce that liability by having an Alcohol Alert machine available for them.

Alcohol Alert helps protect you because it’s a self administered test and can only be used as a screening device. It protects your guest because the machine never says it’s OK to drive, it just indicates BAC levels and warns against driving as the levels increase toward the legal limit of .08%.

The results of the self-test can not be used in court because admissible tests must be administered by a trained expert. In addition, there must be a printout of the test results, and the test must be conducted on a state certified machine.

You and the servers can use the result of an Alcohol Alert test as the reason to stop serving a guest when necessary. Having an Alcohol Alert machine available shows your concern for their safety and well being.