Slowing down and cutting off

By the end of this lesson you can slow a table down, and stop service when slowing down is not enough. Refusal is the last step in a sequence. The steps before it do most of the work.

The AGCO ladder

AGCO sets out three levels of response, keyed to how many signs of intoxication you see. Lesson 4-1 covers the signs themselves.

One sign. Monitor the guest and stay alert for other signs. A single sign may not be linked to intoxication at all. Make food, water, and low-alcohol or non-alcoholic drinks available to slow alcohol intake.

A few signs. Keep monitoring, carefully now. Offer or serve food, water, and low-alcohol or non-alcoholic drinks to bring the rate of drinking down.

Multiple signs. Stop serving alcohol to this guest. AGCO's wording is "under any circumstances", so there is no version of this where one more drink is fine.

Look at what changes between the first two levels. At one sign you make the alternatives available. At a few signs you offer or serve them. You go from stocking the option to putting it on the table.

Slowing a table down

Food is the strongest tool you have, and AGCO gives two reasons. Food delays the absorption of alcohol into the blood. Guests also take longer to drink when they are eating. After-work guests carry the highest risk, because they are likely to arrive on an empty stomach.

The house has to give you something to sell besides liquor. Two of the Registrar's standards make sure of it:

• Standard 5.9: the licensee keeps a variety of non-alcoholic drinks for sale, at moderate prices compared to the liquor prices.
• Standard 5.1: the licensee posts or provides lists of the liquor available, the amount of liquor in each drink offered for sale, the non-alcoholic drinks available, and the prices.

Standard 5.1 helps you at the table. The amount of liquor in each drink is on that list, so you can tell a guest exactly what they ordered.

AGCO also asks you to chat with a guest before you take the order. Have they eaten? Do they seem to have been drinking elsewhere, or using cannabis? AGCO puts the decision on the licence holder: the house decides whether to serve a guest, and the house monitors that guest for signs.

Stopping service

At multiple signs, service ends. Serving past that point breaks the law. Section 32 of the Liquor Licence and Control Act, 2019 says no person shall sell or supply liquor, or permit liquor to be sold or supplied, to any person who is or appears to be intoxicated.

"Appears to be" is the test. You need no breath test, no proof, and no admission from the guest.

The sources give you the decision, not the words for it. The rest of this section is professional practice, not law.

Keep the wording short and in the first person. "I can't serve you any more alcohol tonight. I can bring you water, a coffee, or something to eat."

Tell the guest yourself instead of sending a coworker. Say it beside the guest rather than across the room, so there is no audience. State it once and hold it. If you defend the decision line by line, you have turned it into a negotiation.

What you owe the guest after service stops, including a safe way home, is lesson 4-3.

Making the refusal hold across the room

Section 32 bans two things: selling or supplying liquor to a guest who appears intoxicated, and permitting liquor to be sold or supplied to them. The second half is why a refusal has to travel. If a coworker serves that guest, or a friend buys the round and passes it over, the offence still happens on your floor.

Three things in the sources back you up:

• Standard 4.1: every person involved in the sale, service, sampling, or delivery of liquor holds a valid certificate from a training course the AGCO board approved. The security staff the licensee employs are included too. Everyone you hand the refusal to has your training.
• AGCO asks licensed establishments to develop, post, and enforce a house policy on intoxication.
• AGCO asks door staff to be trained on the signs, and to refuse entry to anyone who appears intoxicated.

Telling your manager and the rest of the service team is standard practice, not a stated rule. It is how the rules above work in a real room.

What you must not do

Each item here is a rule, not advice:

• Do not sell or supply liquor to a guest who is or appears to be intoxicated, and do not permit anyone else to do it (s. 32).
• Do not substitute one type of liquor for another in a drink unless the guest consents (standard 5.13). Swapping a weaker product into the glass without asking is not a legal way to slow a guest down.
• Do not require a guest to buy a minimum number of drinks to enter or to stay (standard 5.3).
• Do not permit contests that involve buying or drinking liquor (standard 5.6).

Under s. 31(1), the guest also commits an offence by being in an intoxicated condition in a place the public is invited into.

The trap to expect on the test

The test likes sequence questions. A scenario gives you a guest with one sign, and the tempting answer stops service on the spot. At one sign you monitor, and you make food, water, and low-alcohol or non-alcoholic drinks available.

The reverse version describes multiple signs and offers "serve one more, then cut them off". At multiple signs there are no exceptions.

Recap

• One sign: monitor, and make food, water, and low-alcohol or non-alcoholic drinks available. A few signs: keep monitoring, and offer or serve them.
• Multiple signs: stop serving alcohol to that guest, under any circumstances.
• Section 32 bans selling or supplying liquor to a guest who is or appears to be intoxicated, and bans permitting anyone else to do it.
• The house must stock non-alcoholic drinks at moderate prices (standard 5.9) and list what is in each drink and what it costs (standard 5.1).
• You cannot substitute one type of liquor for another in a drink without the guest's consent (standard 5.13).
• Calm, short, first-person wording for the cut-off is professional practice. The rule is only that service stops.