Few bars face DUI penalties

DUI Utah series

"I arrived at or about 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and stayed for six hours until 9 p.m. that evening. . . . During that afternoon and evening at the bar, I drank numerous alcoholic beverages. So long as I continued to order the drinks, the bar continued to sell them to me. During at least the last hour that I was in the bar on Feb. 27, 1999, I knew that I had had too much to drink." — Jesus Ramirez-Gatica, defendant, 3rd District Court affidavit

Utah law enforcement officers and state alcohol control bosses are taking another tack to combat the problem of drunken driving — examining closely what happens inside the bars, restaurants and taverns that sell alcohol to people who are drunk, and to close their doors if necessary.

By an unusual set of circumstances, businesses that sell alcohol to patrons have mostly escaped blame in the complex arena where drunken-driving offenses are punished. A look at this side of the drunken-driving issue by the Deseret News reveals the following facts:

• Although there are a number of ways to hold accountable the businesses and servers who sell beer, wine and spirits to people who may go out and drive, rarely do police, state or county officials use these avenues to take action against businesses.

• Even though it has authority to do so, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has never suspended or revoked a business license or issued a fine after a DUI accident in which someone was injured or killed.

• Families of victims killed or injured by a drunken driver usually use civil court proceedings to go after the bar or establishment where the driver became intoxicated before driving.

• Between April 1, 2000, and April 1, 2001, the DABC addressed 78 alcohol-related violations in Utah restaurants, bars and private clubs. Of those, only nine violations were for "sale to an intoxicated person."

• Although there is a spot on a conventional DUI arrest report that asks for the location where the driver was drinking, police officers often leave off this information. Without that information, DABC officials are hamstrung in any attempt to fine a bar or suspend or revoke its alcohol license.

But with urging from the Governor's Council on Drunken Driving, the state division that enforces alcohol laws is reassessing this issue, said Lt. Ken Peay, who supervises the liquor enforcement squad at the Department of Public Safety.