Alcohol sales to pseudo-intoxicated bar patrons

Objectives. Many establishments serve alcoholic beverages to obviously into xicated patrons despite laws against such sales. To guide the develop ment of interventions to reduce these illegal alcohol sales, this study used act ors reigning intoxication to determine whether servers recognized obvious s igns of intoxication and to assess the tactics sewers used when dealing wit h intoxicated patrons. Methods, Male actors ages 30 to 50 acted out signs of obvious intoxication as they attempted to purchase alcoholic beverages, If served during the fir st attempt, these pseudo-intoxicated buyers made second purchase attempts d uring the same visit. Observers accompanied the actors; after each visit, a ctors and observers recorded the servers' behavior and comments. Results, Alcoholic beverages were served to actors portraying intoxicated p atrons at 68% of first purchase attempts and 53% of second purchase attempt s (62% of a total of 106 purchase attempts). The most common refusal techni que was a direct refusal (68% of refusals), made with either no excuse or w ith reference to the actors' apparent intoxication level, Servers second mo st commonly used refusal technique was offering alcohol-free beverages, suc h as coffee or water (18% of refusals). Conclusions. Further research is needed to determine why sewers who recogni ze intoxication serve alcoholic beverages and what training, outlet policie s, and external pressures are needed to reduce illegal alcohol sales to obv iously intoxicated patrons.