Elements of a Responsible House Policy

A House policy offers practical solutions to common problems faced by licensed establishments. It creates a framework within which your customers can enjoy themselves and your servers can operate. With a good house policy in place, your servers do not have to make difficult judgment calls about who to serve or how to handle a tough situation - they know what to do because their responsibilities and your expectations are clearly spelled out.

The portion of your house policy for customers is a public document that should be posted in highly visible locations as it is a set of house rules concerning customers' entry and behavior while in your establishment. The portion of your house policy for staff is directly related to the portion for customers, in that it communicates management's expectations of staff regarding sale of alcohol and instructions for denying entry and ejecting undesirables. These policies indicate your establishment's responsible serving practices and intention to comply with the law and should be shared with your inspector, the policy, your insurance company, and the community along with your patrons.

The following checklist provides a model to guide you in creating your own house policy. You can modify the list to meet your own specific needs, but three factors are common to all successful policies. In order to work, house policies must be written, communicated to your staff and supported by management. Your staff must know that you will back them if they deny service to an intoxicated customer or ask an unruly guest to leave.

Monitor Your Door

• Post a sign indicating that management reserves the right to deny entry to intoxicated and/or underage persons
  
• Assign a staff member that is trained in responsible service practices to monitor door at all times to:
  
  • Check for age and fraudulent identification
    
  • Deny entry to intoxicated people
    
  • Count the number of people on premise to prevent overcrowding and exceeding the legal capacity and provide for a proper customer to staff ratio
    
  • Allow free access to police and liquor inspectors
    

Market Food Actively

• Provide a range of food menu selections
  
• Have lost-cost, low-salt snacks or food at all times
  
• Offer reduced food prices during late afternoon/evening
  
• Provide incentives to servers for increased food sales
  

Beverage Pricing

• Do not promote drink specials, happy hours or discounts
  
• Do not serve the equivalent of several drinks in oversized glasses - use standard glassware
  
• Price non-alcohol products competitively with alcohol products
  

Promote Alternative Beverages

• Stock a good selection of light and non-alcohol beer and wine
  
• Price non-alcohol products competitively with alcohol products
  
• Promote non-alcohol drinks
  
• Serve alcohol-free drinks in containers that are easily distinguishable from alcohol drinks
  
• Evaluate servers on total sales including non-alcoholic products

Train All Staff

• Have all staff trained in a good responsible-server class
  
• Provide all staff with a copy of the establishment's house policies and train them on how to use it
  
• Keep an incident log of problem situations
  
• Regularly review the policy and the incident log with all staff
  
• Prohibit drinking on the job by all staff and managers

Adopt a Safe Transportation Plan

• Identify and rank transportation options
  
• Confirm necessary arrangements with outside companies
  
• Ensure your employees feel comfortable in their understanding of when to use the program
  
• Advertise your program

Never Serve Underage Individuals

• Verify that all servers are legally old enough to serve beverage alcohol
  
• Ensure that staff understand their legal duty regarding service to underage and intoxicated individuals and provide them with clear guidelines on how to deal with these individuals
  
• Establish with staff when to ask for identification
  
• Train staff on how to identify underage customers
  
• Identify what forms of identification are acceptable
  
• Train staff on how to recognize a fake ID and what to do when one is presented
  
• Serve alcohol-free drinks in containers that are easily distinguishable from alcohol drinks

Monitor Drinking of Customers

• Provide staff with guidelines for recognizing the signs of intoxication
  
• Promote the service of one standard drink at a time

Manage the Intoxicated Individual

• Deny entry to intoxicated customers
  
• Monitor comsumption of customers to avoice intoxication
  
• Deny further service to intoxicated customers
  
• Ensure staff are aware of effective ways to deal with an intoxicated individuals
  
• Reinforce policies by giving staff incentives for effectively discouraging and managing intoxicated individuals

Market Your Position

• Explain and market your program internally with incentives and to customers (tent cards, posters, posted policies)
  
• Indicate that you wish no customer to drink to intoxication
  
• Develop a Mission Statement and post it prominently

MODEL MISSION STATEMENT
"The goal of our establishment is to be successful by providing responsible, courteous, safe and professional food and beverage service. We are committed to adhering to all liquor laws while assisting customers in their decision to drink responsibly"