Mixing Booze and Caution

For bartender Gil Pereides, the highly social job of serving up spirits often reminds him of being invited to a wild, blue-collar bacchanal of drink and song--but he’s the only one who’s sober.

Switching between Cokes and coffee, he stays slightly wired and ever watchful, often observing people change character as they drink, on guard for the most difficult decision of any evening: whether to play Alcohol Cop and cut off a drunk customer whose fuzzy behavior signals that he or she has already had too much.

On a Friday night, the 50-year-old Pereides stands behind the bar at Whiskey Bend in Burbank, sizing up weekend revelers and regular barflies, any of whom might soon turn troublemaker, as K.C. and the Sunshine Band belts from the sound system at ear-deafening decibels: “That’s the way [uh-huh, uh-huh] I like it! . . .”

At the bar, there’s the guy with the cocktail glaze in his eyes, somebody’s cross to bear, who insists on high-fiving each person who passes. And the young woman with the belly tattoo and hip-huggers, sipping from some bluish elixir and doing the bump with every man on a bar stool.

There’s the character in the black Santa’s cap who seems to be patting the pregnant woman’s belly just a little too hard. And the muscle man Pereides calls “Mr. Macho,” who just may be cruising for a fight as he flexes his pectorals and downs a shot of Jack Daniels near the pool table.

“Any one of them,” Pereides says warily, “can change the entire complexion of this place in less than a minute.”

It’s a dilemma faced by bartenders from crowded Hollywood dance clubs to Beverly Hills restaurant-bars: When do you cut off the inebriated drinker? And how do you do it tactfully, without raising an alcohol-inflamed scene?

California bartenders are largely left to rely upon their own code of ethics and gut-check calls in the decision of whether to keep serving.

Although state law forbids serving alcohol to intoxicated patrons, officials say enforcement is often difficult, primarily due to wording that says the person must be “obviously intoxicated.”

“What does that mean? Slurring your speech? Or falling off your bar stool?” asks Carl Falleta, assistant director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission in Southern California.

“The law makes a big distinction between being ‘intoxicated’ and ‘obviously intoxicated.’ We’ve had patrons falling down drunk and have still had a heavy legal burden to prove that the bartender was breaking the law.”

California is one of only seven states that do not hold bartenders and bar owners legally liable for death or accidents that result from serving a drunk patron--unless that person is a minor.

The notion of bartender liability was eliminated by the Legislature in 1979 after intense lobbying by the alcohol industry. The state’s business and professions code was revised to hold that alcohol consumers were liable for their actions.

In 1996, 1,031 people were killed in drunk driving-related accidents statewide--173 of them in Los Angeles County--and an additional 27,843 were injured. Studies show that a majority of the drunk drivers were drinking in bars or taverns and that the accidents occurred within a few miles of where the driver took his or her last drink.

The lack of regulation leaves bartenders like Pereides in a legally gray area. Because the authorities aren’t looking too closely over his shoulder, does he let that good-tipping regular customer keep drinking as long as he’s not causing a ruckus? Or does he go with his instincts and instead serve a cup of black coffee and make a call to the cab company?

“I always opt for the coffee and the cab,” says Pereides matter-of-factly. “Myself, I just don’t want to deal with the bad karma of one of these people going out there and killing somebody on the road.

“Because everyone knows that it’s not the drunk driver who dies, it’s somebody innocent.”

Tricks of the Trade

On a Tuesday afternoon in the Pineapple Hill in Sherman Oaks, bartender Perry Atkins draws the line with one of his regulars.

“OK, friend,” says the gray-haired Atkins, who’s usually more of a friendly Father Superior than mere dispenser of drinks. “Time to go home.”

The drinker laughs. “You mean, it’s not E.T. phone home?”

Earlier, the guy had told Atkins not to give him another drink, even if he begged.

“Then he started to beg,” Atkins says in mock disgust.

He turns to the drinker. “You’re too much, man. I never had as much fun 86-ing somebody in my whole life. Now, get out of here.”

Atkins is old school--a bartender who knows the first names of most drinkers at the Pineapple Hill and is quick to loan his regulars a crisp $20 bill.

These folks--these mailmen, cops and schoolteachers--usually don’t even have to ask for their drinks; Atkins has it placed before them as they sit down.

Like many bartenders in tiny taverns, he keeps tabs on his day-shift regulars, knows what they’ve had to drink, how much they can stomach. And, more important, he knows when to tell them they’ve had enough. He’s even driven some home after his shift ends at 6 p.m.

The drinkers who trouble Atkins most, though, are the strangers. Without blatantly asking, bartenders often cannot tell how much a patron has already had to drink when he or she walks through the door.

And so, as Perry Como and Frank Sinatra croon from the jukebox, Atkins watches.

In 25 years behind the bar, he’s learned that the ones who most demand his attention are the quiet types who continue to tip them back without causing a scene, often without even talking. He knows the tricks to get control of drunks before they become a problem, like getting the drinkers’ friends to persuade them that they’ve gone over the line. He knows the way to smile, to make the offer of a free cup of coffee, the promise to give them another drink--as soon as they go home and sleep off this present little bender.

He does all this gently because he knows that many veteran drinkers take the act of being cut off as a personal slight--one many will remember for years to come.

California defines intoxication as a person whose blood-alcohol content is 0.08%, which a 150-pound man will reach after drinking about four bottles of beer.

Atkins has seen imbibers do their drunken calculations to gauge whether they are over the limit: “Let’s see, the number of drinks I’ve already had, squared, minus my age and the distance to Jupiter’s third moon.”

All before they give up and order another drink.

That’s when Atkins turns Alcohol Cop.

“I don’t care if they’ve been coming in for years, I’ll tell them straight out, ‘Hey, pal, I like working here. And I’m not gonna risk my job just because you want another drink.’ ”

Indirect Pressure

In 1971, the California Supreme Court broke new ground by ruling that third parties injured in drunk driver-related crashes could sue the bar where the motorist overindulged. Several states followed suit, citing California’s precedent.

Then came the accident involving actor James Stacy, who lost an arm and a leg after his motorcycle was struck by a drunk driver one September night in 1973 along Benedict Canyon Road, a crash that killed his female passenger.

Stacy sued the Beverly Hills bar that served the drunk driver and was awarded $1.9 million--the first of a new rash of such judgments against tavern owners.

Finally, in 1979, after mounting pressure from the liquor industry, the Legislature shifted responsibility from the server back to the drinker.

The 1979 law would never be passed today, says the ABC’s Falleta. “It got through in an era before social watchdog groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But once on the books, it’s difficult for prevention groups to get it off.”

State ABC officials and local police departments do what they can to put indirect pressure on bartenders.

Judges and arresting officers will often query drunk drivers about where they were drinking and tip off investigators for undercover stings.

Between July 1996 and June 1997, ABC officials in Los Angeles County filed 91 administrative accusations against 8,700 county licensees--bars, restaurants and clubs--for serving obviously intoxicated patrons. Such violations often force bars to close down for a brief period.

Likewise, for the first 11 months of 1997, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office cited 61 bartenders on suspicion of serving drunken customers--a misdemeanor charge that could bring six months in jail or a $1,000 fine.

Officials say dealing with even the tip of the drinking iceberg has left them chilled.

“People are out of control,” says David Wainstein, an ABC attorney. “We’ve seen people falling down drunk to crawling around on the floor. We’ve had bartenders wake people up at the bar and serve them another drink. It’s like ‘Animal House’ in some places. . . . The bartenders who get caught are clearly a minimal percentage of the ones out there violating the law.”

Adds one local ABC investigator, who asked not to be identified: “We arrested one guy in a dance club who was so drunk he was covered with urine from his waist to his knees. And the bartenders continued to serve him.”

In recent years, several states have begun requiring that bar owners participate in government-run programs that teach bartenders and other employees how to spot and cordially stop serving inebriated patrons.

California isn’t one of them. To the chagrin of alcohol activists, such programs are still voluntary.

Ronald Beitman, a Boston attorney who wrote a guidebook for the American Bar Assn. on liquor liability litigation, says: “Thank God there aren’t a lot of states like California.”

Learning From Experience

Back at Whiskey Bend in Burbank, nightside bartender Barbara Landsberger has her own set of rules in deciding whom to serve. She watches boozers who order little ice “because they’re the ones who want strong drinks, who want to get screwed up.” She eavesdrops on conversations, listens for increased profanity, even watches to see whether patrons weave when they walk to the bathroom.

Then she goes by gut instinct.

“I get a feeling about a person within 15 minutes--if their eyes are funny or their speech is slurred. Just like a cop who’s stopped you on the freeway.”

Bryan Hosford, who bartends at the newly opened Nics in Beverly Hills, avoids open confrontations with drunk patrons--he just ignores them.

“The way I get out of cutting people off is slowing to a crawl in giving them their next drink,” he says. “If they start watching me, I get even slower. It’s a tactful way of saying, ‘I’m ignoring you.’ Eventually, they leave.”

Years behind the bar have made him conservative, Hosford says.

“We’re all scared we’re going to be the one responsible for someone getting killed,” he says. “I’ve even been cautious while serving drinks in a hotel bar. People will say, ‘Hey, my room is right upstairs,’ and I’ll tell them that they could fall down a flight of stairs.”

Westwood bartender David Fofi remembers his goal as a young bartender was simply not to offend people, to keep them coming back.

“But you get older and you get wiser,” he says. “Because dead people never come back.”

Some bars maintain policies that seem anything but conservative.

At Whiskey Bend, bartenders “free-pour” drinks, using their own discretion on how much alcohol to serve, rather than devices that gauge a standard shot. Other bars offer regulars a free drink every third round.

Many bartenders acknowledge that as long as drinkers behave themselves, they’ll keep serving.

“As long as they don’t show it, I’ll give them another drink,” says one bartender at the venerable Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood, where both Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe once drank. “I mean, how am I supposed to know?”

At the bar of the nearby Dan Tana’s restaurant, Michael Gotovac will gently coo to regulars in a charming Croatian accent that they’ve had too much. If they don’t listen, he’ll simply reduce the alcohol in their drinks.

Gotovac, 55, the restaurant’s regular bartender since 1968, says he is forced to cut off at least one drinker every night, the most recent being a proper Englishman who began taking off his clothes.

Regulars say they know they have reached their limit when Gotovac leans in with a smile and asks them who’s driving.

Travel agent Caren Banks says: “If I take a sip of my drink and notice that’s it’s all water, I’ll say, ‘Michael, am I that drunk?’ ”

Dangers of Fashion Drinks

What bugs Pereides most are the fashion drinks, the Long Island Iced Teas and other sweet concoctions he says are consumed with the expressed purpose of getting smashed.

One night off work from Whiskey Bend, Pereides drank four Long Island Iced Teas, to see how they affected him: “They hit me like a ton of bricks.”

As a result, he says, you’re not going to drink more than three of those bad boys at his bar.

Pereides tells you proudly that he doesn’t need any undercover officers or alcohol investigators to run fear into the heart of his tavern--he’ll do that himself.

Just ask Vic Raul. One night, the Burbank graphics designer was at Whiskey Bend, buying rounds for the house, living it up. “I was out of control,” Raul admits.

After he knocked over a drink, Pereides cut him off, called him a cab and sent him packing.

“I was really mad at him,” says Raul. “I didn’t talk to him for two weeks. But [then] I realized how he might have done me a favor.”

Then he motions toward Pereides, raising a bottle of Miller Lite beer. “Hey guys, let’s do a toast to ole Gil.

“To one bartender who runs a pretty tight ship.”