reo
11-04-2011, 05:36 AM
Ok, so need to start of with a little back story...
When my brother-in-law was 3, he was hit by a car and ended up in a coma for 6 weeks. Though he is ambulatory, he has muscle control issues (he does stagger) and while he's of average intelligence (but for other reasons, less educated), his speech processing is slow. Not that he speaks slowly, but it sometimes takes him a while to formulate a response. He is legally disabled and it is readily apparent that something is wrong with him.
So what the hell does this have to do with bartending? Well, again this evening, and hardly for the first time, when he and I went into a bar tonight for a drink, the bartender initially refused to serve him because he was "obviously drunk." Now I get the rational legality involved. However, this is a guy who has been treated like a semi-freak his entire life because of his disability and having this happen upsets him and me for that matter. It went from him looking forward to going out and having some fun to one drink and back home with him, his sister and myself all bummed out about the situation.
I will add that context does seem to play a part. If we are at a restaurant or nicer bar, this doesn't come up. And maybe that is the basic answer: stay away from dive bars where the barfly crowd is more of an issue. But I would like to know, from the bartender's side, the best way to deal with this situation so that my bro-in-law gets treated with as much respect as possible?
When my brother-in-law was 3, he was hit by a car and ended up in a coma for 6 weeks. Though he is ambulatory, he has muscle control issues (he does stagger) and while he's of average intelligence (but for other reasons, less educated), his speech processing is slow. Not that he speaks slowly, but it sometimes takes him a while to formulate a response. He is legally disabled and it is readily apparent that something is wrong with him.
So what the hell does this have to do with bartending? Well, again this evening, and hardly for the first time, when he and I went into a bar tonight for a drink, the bartender initially refused to serve him because he was "obviously drunk." Now I get the rational legality involved. However, this is a guy who has been treated like a semi-freak his entire life because of his disability and having this happen upsets him and me for that matter. It went from him looking forward to going out and having some fun to one drink and back home with him, his sister and myself all bummed out about the situation.
I will add that context does seem to play a part. If we are at a restaurant or nicer bar, this doesn't come up. And maybe that is the basic answer: stay away from dive bars where the barfly crowd is more of an issue. But I would like to know, from the bartender's side, the best way to deal with this situation so that my bro-in-law gets treated with as much respect as possible?