Hospitality Workers Deserve Alcohol-Free Workplaces
Where's the outrage, folks?! For years now, hospitality workers have been forced to endure the outrageous and often fatal consequences of being stuck in workplaces where alcohol consumption is permitted. The insanity must stop now! Workers in most industries are not forced to deal with alcohol consumption at their workplace. Give me one good reason why the law should discriminate against workers in the hospitality industry! I move that we take immediate steps to outlaw the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in all restaurants, bars, casinos, bowling alleys and all other "public" places as a workplace safety measure to protect the industry's hard-working employees from the unpleasant and often deadly consequences of secondhand alcohol consumption.
There are many ways in which workplace conditions in the hospitality industry would improve if alcohol consumption was prohibited. Certain, there would be far fewer awkward moments for bartenders being sexually harassed by drunken bar patrons, attempting to cut off inebriated customers who have had one too many, attempting to obstruct customers who appear poised to drink and drive, and breaking up bar brawls instigated by consumption of alcoholic beverages in said workplace. But most importantly of all, this is about SAVING LIVES!
It's hard to get a firm annual casualty number on hospitality workers who've lost their lives due to customer intoxication at their workplace, but a simple Google search yields thousands of tragic stories with fatal endings, with this particular story highly representative of the trend: http://www.twincities.com/... Most of these deaths are directly related to the consumption of alcohol at that very establishment. And as high as the body count directly resulting from secondhand alcohol consumption may be, it escalates stratospherically when you account for the number of drunk-driving deaths that follow the consumption of alcohol in restaurants and bars...and the number of domestic abuse cases that result from people leaving bars and restaurants intoxicated and bringing their unruly drunkenness home with them.
It is a national disgrace that we allow this madness to continue. These bartenders and bouncers losing their lives are our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters....and we're letting them die. That's why there can be no exceptions and no compromises to my proposed ban of alcohol in "public places" such as restaurants, bars, and casinos.
Another fringe benefit will be a decrease in the level of alcohol consumption by the public. Goodness knows that such microregulation of people's personal consumption choices of legal substances is perfectly within the domain of representative government so any killjoys raising the "nanny state" flag should be laughed off. Remember, this is about SAVING LIVES! And along that same theme, just think of the trillions of dollars worth of health care savings the insurance industry will enjoy if fewer people consume alcoholic beverages in excess.
Anybody who refuses to give up their "personal freedoms" to accommodate a safer workplace for hospitality industry workers is just a selfish pig. Your freedoms end where theirs begin, after all. And of course we can expect some petulant dissenters to serve up all kinds of doomsday scenarios about how an alcohol ban would result in a loss of business, particularly in bars. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some hypothetical studies suggest that bar revenues would actually GO UP following an alcohol ban because so many people who have avoided them in the past because of the obnoxious drunks will be more inclined to frequent those establishments.
We have a moral duty to provide the safest possible workplace environments for our hospitality industry employees. For that reason, my next effort will be to outlaw the sale and consumption of fried food at restaurants. The cooking of fried food can produce nasty grease burns on hard-working hospitality workers, and they shouldn't be forced to endure that indignity any more than an office worker should. But I'll fight for that effort later. Right now, my priority is to finally give hospitality workers the protection they deserve from secondhand alcohol consumption. Won't you join me?
There are many ways in which workplace conditions in the hospitality industry would improve if alcohol consumption was prohibited. Certain, there would be far fewer awkward moments for bartenders being sexually harassed by drunken bar patrons, attempting to cut off inebriated customers who have had one too many, attempting to obstruct customers who appear poised to drink and drive, and breaking up bar brawls instigated by consumption of alcoholic beverages in said workplace. But most importantly of all, this is about SAVING LIVES!
It's hard to get a firm annual casualty number on hospitality workers who've lost their lives due to customer intoxication at their workplace, but a simple Google search yields thousands of tragic stories with fatal endings, with this particular story highly representative of the trend: http://www.twincities.com/... Most of these deaths are directly related to the consumption of alcohol at that very establishment. And as high as the body count directly resulting from secondhand alcohol consumption may be, it escalates stratospherically when you account for the number of drunk-driving deaths that follow the consumption of alcohol in restaurants and bars...and the number of domestic abuse cases that result from people leaving bars and restaurants intoxicated and bringing their unruly drunkenness home with them.
It is a national disgrace that we allow this madness to continue. These bartenders and bouncers losing their lives are our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters....and we're letting them die. That's why there can be no exceptions and no compromises to my proposed ban of alcohol in "public places" such as restaurants, bars, and casinos.
Another fringe benefit will be a decrease in the level of alcohol consumption by the public. Goodness knows that such microregulation of people's personal consumption choices of legal substances is perfectly within the domain of representative government so any killjoys raising the "nanny state" flag should be laughed off. Remember, this is about SAVING LIVES! And along that same theme, just think of the trillions of dollars worth of health care savings the insurance industry will enjoy if fewer people consume alcoholic beverages in excess.
Anybody who refuses to give up their "personal freedoms" to accommodate a safer workplace for hospitality industry workers is just a selfish pig. Your freedoms end where theirs begin, after all. And of course we can expect some petulant dissenters to serve up all kinds of doomsday scenarios about how an alcohol ban would result in a loss of business, particularly in bars. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some hypothetical studies suggest that bar revenues would actually GO UP following an alcohol ban because so many people who have avoided them in the past because of the obnoxious drunks will be more inclined to frequent those establishments.
We have a moral duty to provide the safest possible workplace environments for our hospitality industry employees. For that reason, my next effort will be to outlaw the sale and consumption of fried food at restaurants. The cooking of fried food can produce nasty grease burns on hard-working hospitality workers, and they shouldn't be forced to endure that indignity any more than an office worker should. But I'll fight for that effort later. Right now, my priority is to finally give hospitality workers the protection they deserve from secondhand alcohol consumption. Won't you join me?
posted by Mark at 8:33 PM
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