The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Eleven students completed a Responsible Alcohol Sales and Service (RASS) training class recently hosted by the Eagles Club in Chinook. The state mandated class teaches participants the laws relating to serving alcohol in Montana’s establishments. Some students were taking their first class, others were doing their class required every three years to maintain their certification.

Short history of RASS training

According to Lisa Scates, Alcohol Education Coordinator for Montana’s Alcohol Education Unit, the training program for servers was first passed in 2003 by the state legislature and became mandated for all servers in 2011. She added, “Now we have a data base of 75,000 names of people who have been certified through RASS. There were 17,000 certified in 2011 when the course was first mandated for all servers.” After five years some of the names in the data base are servers who have taken the course for the second time to maintain their certification.

Montana’s Alcohol Education Unit teaches most of the three hour courses through its “Let’s Control It” program. Those classes, like the one offered in Chinook, are taught by state certified trainers. Scates said, “There are 12 other programs that people can take—some of them are offered totally online. The Let’s Control It program alone certifies more than all the other commercially offered programs that are state approved for Montana.”

The RASS course

Chinook Police Chief Elmer Zarn taught the recent class at the Eagles Club. He said, “I have been certified as a trainer since 2011, when the program first began. I offer the program a couple of times each year. Now I’m seeing more people who are taking the course for their third year recertification. The class has changed over time, relying more on computerized testing and more interactive materials that get the students more directly involved.” He gives a major portion of his training fee to the Blaine County DUI Task Force, of which he is a member.

Blaine County Deputy Chris Adair, who is also the head of the county’s DUI Task Force, was helping in the class. Students were quick to raise their hands when Chief Zarn posed questions from the student booklets. The fact Deputy Adair was passing out candy for the first correct answer helped keep the enthusiasm and interaction high.

Because the course is based on legal requirements, a good bit of the material is about requirements and legal consequences for infractions for both servers and license holders. Basically, anyone 18 years or older can be a certified server. Alcohol can only be sold and served to persons over 21 years of age, whether from an onsite (alcohol is sold and consumed at the same location) or offsite (alcohol is purchased to be consumed elsewhere) establishment. The majority of the material dealt with maintaining a legal and safe environment.

A major challenge is avoiding sales to underage customers. The most widely used form of identification to buy alcohol is a driver’s license. In the fall of 2015 Montana began issuing a more sophisticated driver’s license with watermarks, ultraviolet sensitive inks, ‘ghost’ images, bar codes and redundant driver personal data in more than one place on the license. All this is an attempt to limit the ability of people to modify a driver’s license—for both stopping underage alcohol purchase and identity theft. One big change is future drivers under 21 years of age will be issued a license printed in a vertical format to allow someone to check an id and quickly see if the person is the legal age to buy alcohol.

According to the RASS materials, it’s not fake id’s that are most used to illegally purchase alcohol by underage drinkers, but the use of a legitimate id that belongs to another person. Several parts of the RASS training explained ways for servers to identify if the person showing the id is the actual owner.

There are consequences for servers, license holders and customers who violate laws related to purchasing alcohol, especially by minors. For servers who sell to an underage customer, the first offense can bring up to a $500 fine and six months in jail. The liquor license holder, where an underage sale is made, can be fined $250 for a first offense. More offenses within a certain time frame can ultimately result in the loss of the owner’s liquor license. And an underage buyer can be fined between $100 and $300, plus a community service requirement, for a first offense. The penalties get stiffer, including loss of a driver’s license, for repeated underage purchasing infractions.

Perhaps the most difficult task for a server is deciding when to stop serving someone who may be intoxicated. The law clearly prohibits a server from selling alcohol to someone who is intoxicated, but determining that is often a judgement call. Servers, in the class, learned a number of ways to identify behaviors that indicate intoxication and were shown ways to safely stop serving an intoxicated customer. Zarn emphasized, “If you have an intoxicated patron who keeps wanting to be served, your best course of action is to call law enforcement before the situation escalates.”

Completing the course means absorbing and understanding a lot of information. Servers are tasked with a challenging number of things to be aware of and laws to be enforced. Serving is a job the folks taking the class all seem to enjoy and take seriously and now they have some new skills to do their job.

Readers can find more information about the requirements to be a certified server, along with several course options, by going to: revenue.mt.gov/home/liquor/liquoreducation.