It’s a Sunday morning at Mozzarella’s Italian Bar and Grill, more than seven hours since the North Providence establishment stopped serving alcohol.
Inside, nearly 30 employees of the company are there, listening to William A. Tribelli, a restaurant specialist, teach wait staff and bartenders alike how to serve drinks and how to deal with drunk customers.
Classes like Tribelli’s have experienced a boom lately, thanks to a state law that goes into effect Jan. 1.
Under the law, anyone who serves or sells alcohol, is responsible for checking identification, or is a valet attendant must complete a certified alcohol server training program. Employees of the bar or restaurant, who must be certified within 60 days of being hired, will be required to be re-certified every three years.
The law, passed originally in 2004 and which requires establishments to certify employees by April 1, replaces an informal system of voluntary certification programs that has been in effect for years.
A test will be administered for the certification and employees must score 75 percent or better in order to pass.
According to Tribelli, the law comes at a time when Rhode Island is wrestling with how to curb alcohol-related traffic fatalities and underage drinking.
Recently, Rhode Island was placed on the “Fatal 15,” a list of the states with the highest proportions of drunk-driving deaths compiled by the group End Needless Deaths on our Highways.
Laws like the certification requirements may help increase education and cut back on these societal problems,
Tribelli said. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got,” he said.
But in another way, the Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association’s Heather Singleton said the laws will help protect the liquor license holders affected by it.
As more liability is placed on alcohol servers, the process of certification can educate the employees.
“It will help protect owners of the establishment against frivolous lawsuits,” Singleton said.
Certification classes vary in prices between different trainers, but according to Singleton, members of the association pay about $40 per certification for the program it offers (the costs for the programs can be covered by the employer or employee).
As owner of La Forge Casino Restaurant, state Rep. Paul Crowley, D-Newport, said his employees will comply with the new regulations.
His establishment, however, has had a policy in place for years: If an employee doesn’t feel comfortable serving somebody another drink, they don’t.
Crowley said the Newport area may wrestle with the implementation of the law in the summer months, when the large influx of business requires institutions to hire more staff. But since employees must be certified within two months, they too will need to go through the training and take the test.
Despite the active schedule of certification training currently under way, the state has yet to certify any training programs. Under the new law, the Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals is creating the guidelines now, and it expects the process to be complete by the end of the year.
But in the interest of having people trained, the state is allowing existing programs to fill in the gap. And since employees still will be required to take the tests, the training will still be required to cover the ground.
Topics covered under the proposed training guidelines include the effects of alcohol on operating a vehicle, health problems associated with heavy alcohol use and how to distinguish and refuse service to intoxicated patrons.
State Sen. Leonidas P. Raptakis, D-Coventry, introduced legislation earlier this year intending to protect locally based trainers. Under an earlier version of the certification law, passed in 2004, programs would have had to be administered by “nationally recognized” trainers.
“It [would have been] like another Wal-Mart coming into Rhode Island,” he said, alluding to the criticism that Wal-Mart pushes small companies out of business.
