Home Hosting Tips

As a host, keeping your guests from drinking excessively should be your primary concern.
Here are some tips you can put into practice to make your next event a safe one:

Tip 1
Event Policies & Procedures

Develop event policies and procedures, ensuring they are clear, positive and easy to update.

Some suggestions are:

• do risk assessment guidelines (a sample is available in the Smart Serve workbook)
• post policies in a visible place
• review policies with staff/volunteers.  This will ensure your staff / volunteers are clear on how to deal with aggressive, unruly, intoxicated guests and understand what is expected of them.
• Some policies should include things like:
• not allowing staff/volunteers to drink on the job
• ensuring that staff/volunteers are of legal age to serve alcohol and are trained to deal with difficult situations
• providing for adequate guest-to-staff ratio – have enough staff on duty to ensure the safety of your customers
• dealing with underage guests, including how to recognize and deal with false ID

Under the "Occupiers Liability", both the organizers of the event and the operator of the location are jointly responsible for ensuring that the facility meets health and safety requirements.  Both the permit holder and the facility owner could be sued for failing to ensure that the premises are safe for both sober and intoxicated guests.

Tip 2
Have a Floor Plan

• Station the bar far from the door, in a spot where people aren’t always passing it
• Even for a small event, hire a professional bartender who has been trained by Smart Serve.  Insist that he or she use a jigger to measure spirits.  If your budget allows, hire a caterer with trained staff.  Caterers can include both independent operators and restaurants that carry catering endorsements.
• Provide seating, arranged flexibly, so that people can sit down to talk in groups
• Don’t plan to have servers circulating around the room refilling people’s glasses.  People often accept drinks they don’t really need.
• Don’t plan physical activities like swimming, skiing, snowmobile or skating when you serve alcohol.  People are more prone to accidents when they’ve been drinking
• If you will be holding a large event, arrange for some type of door control to limit the number of people who enter your event.  Do not allow the number of guests to exceed the legal capacity of the premises.

Tip 3
Develop safe serving practices

• Serve drinks to guests rather than offering a self-serve bar.  A self-serve bar encourages heavy drinking and denies bartenders the opportunity to assess the condition of your guests.
• If you have a cash bar:
  1. use tickets
  2. do not sell multiple tickets to one guests
  3. do not set the price of alcohol too low since this will encourage heavy drinking
  4. make sure you have low-alcohol beers and wines in your bar selections
  5. offer a variety of alcohol-free drinks.
• Place water, soda, juice and ice at stations around the room so that people can easily "freshen" their drinks without adding more alcohol.
• Check the identification of people you suspect are under 19 years of age.  Never serve minors.  In addition to being illegal, inexperienced drinkers are most likely to drive irresponsibly and cause accidents.
• Stop serving alcohol at least one hour before the scheduled end of the party.
• Continue serving food and non-alcohol beverages instead.

Lead by example.  Don’t point out the bar to each arriving guest.  Take the attitude that cocktails are simply one form of refreshment, and that alcohol free drinks are just as acceptable.

Tip 4
Provide plenty of food

• Provide a variety of food items, because food consumption slows down the absorption of alcohol.
• Place hors d’oeuvres / snack items on a table near the door, so people can begin to nibble as soon as they arrive, and before they have a drink.
• Don’t serve a lot of salty snacks.  These make people thirstier so they will likely try to quench the thirst with alcohol, instead of water or soft drinks.
• Select hot and cold items as well as some foods that don’t require any special temperature - like baked goods and snack mixes.  Limit food safety concerns by always keeping cold foods cold, and hot foods hot.

Tip 5
Managing Risk

Licensees, managers and special event organizers have both a legal and practical duty to ensure their guests drink responsibly, to manage risk, prepare and follow a risk management plan.

The key elements of such a plan are:

• ensure all staff (including volunteers at a social event) are Smart Serve trained
• familiarize yourself with the current provincial laws as well as the Liquor License Act
• have a Smart Serve Incident Reporting Log on hand to record details of all guest incidents
• investigate alternatives to driving for guests leaving your event, such as:
  • designated driver programs
  • subsidized taxis
  • local transit
• acquire adequate insurance coverage and any necessary permits
• conduct a safety inspection of the premises
• develop an emergency action plan, which includes a chain of command and post it at obvious places on the premises
• communicate the risk management plan and the emergency action plan to all staff

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Article brought to you by Smart Serve Ontario.