Dram Shop Actions

I could not sleep that night. I was haunted by images of swaying girls, scantily clad wrapped around their dates whose fingers were wrapped around a blunt. Ahhhh, it was the first week after opening my restaurant and a friend of mine threw a party to which I was not invited! Okay.......it was a little hard to swallow but i found myself getting out of the bed at 230am that morning to do a drive-by at the place I now call Homage. 

These were the questions that haunted me:

1. What if the neighbours were annoyed by the loud music and called the cops?

2. What if the party people were smoking marijuana?....neighbours calling cops again.

3. What if they all got totally inebriated and something really bad happened?.....law school classes on Dram Shop and potential liabilities on my part.....

4. What if, what if????

So I drove by and parked up front. Everything was cool. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

PS. 

The State of New York's Dram Shop laws make it difficult for bar owners and restaurants to defend against civil actions stemming from alcohol related injuries or death. To figure out exactly when to stop serving alcohol to a patron in order to avoid civil liability or death sustained by a third party is a difficult exercise in and of itself. The standard applied by the courts as to what constitutes 'visible' intoxication is a complex, varying one. What is absolutely clear is that a detailed, immediate investigation must be conducted of all customers and employees of a restaurant/bar upon learning of an alcohol related accident.