New Hampshire Serving Law

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New Hampshire Law Change May Affect Bartenders

New Hampshire law on serving alcohol currently states, “No one shall serve alcoholic beverages to a person under 21 or to an intoxicated individual.” But an amendment sponsored by state Senator Martha Fuller Clark (D)-Portsmouth, would add the phrase “knowingly serve”, resulting in a momentous change in serving standards for bars and bartenders.

Opponents of the amendment feel that the change would completely remove all responsibility on the part of the bartender to use good judgment when serving already intoxicated customers. State Liquor Commission Chief Eddie Edwards stated that bartenders should be limited to serving one drink per customer per hour. This would mean that servers and bartenders would be limited to the amount of alcohol they are legally allowed to serve, instead of being entirely relieved of the possibility of being held accountable should an event resulting from over-serving take place.

These debates are directly related to recent events in Portsmouth, one involving an underage drinker and the other a car crash that fatally wounded a pedestrian. According to the NashuaTelegraph.com, t all seems like a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist. As reported on Monday, there are 4,500 establishments licensed to serve alcohol in New Hampshire, and only 51 were cited for over-serving violations in 2008. There is no witch-hunt under way to prosecute responsible bartenders, nor is there a problem with rampant over-serving to intoxicated patrons. The vast majority of bartenders understand their responsibility and act accordingly.”

Not to mention that by changing the law in either way would essentially remove personal choice and responsibility on the part of customers, who are well aware of the dangers, both physically and legally of not using sound judgment when drinking alcohol.

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