Argument Essay Essay, Research Paper
Argument Essay After eight hours of intoxicating himself at the friendly Inn Bar on October 3 of 1990, Alfred Ray Vance attempted to drive home. His drive turned to murder after a head on collision with Larry and Nancy Bradley. Alfred escaped the accident free of major harm. Larry and Nancy, on the other hand, were killed. I do not think this is the bar’s owner s fault. Alfred Ray Vance decided to take the responsibility of drinking and therefore must take responsibility for his own actions. For the Bradley kids to use the bar as a scapegoat is merely blaming someone else for Alfred’s mistake. The drinking age is limited for a reason. If it were the bartender’s responsibility to baby-sit his customers it wouldn’t be dangerous to allow minors to drink there. But minors are not allowed to drink there because they don’t hold enough responsibility to take care of themselves. Alfred was permitted to drink in the bar because he was supposedly a responsible adult. Furthermore, The Friendly Inn Bar should not be held responsible for controlling all of its intoxicated residents because there is nothing it can truly do to control them. It is unrealistic to say that every time a bartender believes one of his customers is drunk that he will hold him in the bar or arrange a cab for him to take home. If the customer is intoxicated, it would be very easy for him to become hostile towards anyone trying to change his plan and would more often than not result in some sort of violence. Besides, who would pay for the cab? The customer wouldn’t want it in the first place and would probably refuse. If the bar had to pay a cab fare for a fraction of its customers it would make very little, if any, profit. An opponent to my reasoning might say that the bartender should keep an eye on his customers and cut off all of the ones that are starting to show signs of being drunk. Some may claim that is their duty as someone who is serving intoxicating drinks to make sure that the drinks aren’t affecting someone to a dangerous point. Another argument someone might have is that someone cannot be held accountable for their actions when they are intoxicated and therefore the sober one, the bartender, should be responsible. They would say that when someone is drunk they act very different than when they are sober and will make dangerous judgment calls without giving them much thought. I don’t agree with someone that says that a bartender should keep an eye over his customers. This would be great if it were only that easy, however, it is not. On a busy night a bar can become crammed with drinking adults. It is unrealistic to believe that the bartender could possibly keep track of each person and accurately cut off the intoxicated ones. Furthermore, many people can handle their alcohol very well and would make it very difficult to tell their level of drunkenness. Neither do I agree with the person that claims that the bartender should be responsible for the fact that he is the only truly sober one in the bar. This is something much easier said than done. In order for a bartender to be able to identify every customer as drunk or sober is a very difficult thing to do, no matter how sober the bartender is. With some people this would not be such a difficult thing to recognize, but others hide their level of intoxication to a great degree. Not everyone in the bar is a regular and the bartender may have no idea of what that person may act like on a regular basis. To put the pressure on a bartender to stop people who seem to be approaching drunkenness from drinking would be absolutely ridiculous. Therefore, it isn’t the bar’s responsibility to make sure that none of its customers drive drunk. It is the customers job to do that for themselves. It is the police officer’s duty to serve and protect. It is only the bar’s responsibility to serve.