 - The Riverton City Council has decided not to pursue a proposed ordinance requiring local liquor license holders to notify police when patrons are removed for intoxication.){kind=link}
(Riverton, WY) – The Riverton City Council has decided not to pursue a proposed ordinance requiring local liquor license holders to notify police when patrons are removed for intoxication.
The decision came during a regular meeting Tuesday, when the council heard from three community members who were skeptical that the ordinance would be effective.
Public hearing
The first to speak during the public hearing on the proposed ordinance was Ralff’s bar owner, Jana Peterson, who talked about an incident involving an unruly patron who was asked to leave her establishment earlier this month.
When the patron became threatening and refused to leave the property, the bartender who was working at the time called the police, Peterson explained – but law enforcement didn’t arrive for more than 20 minutes.
During that time, Peterson said the unruly patron started physically attacking the bartender and other customers, and it wasn’t until after the patron went outside and the bartender called law enforcement again that the police were able to locate the suspect, charge her with battery, and trespass her from the property.
“My bartender had cuts on her arm,” Peterson said. “Now you guys are wanting us to call (the police) every time somebody gets booted out of the bar. Why?”
Mayor Tim Hancock thanked Peterson for sharing her story, which he said demonstrated that, if it already takes 20 minutes for police to respond to a report of an unruly patron, “it doesn’t make sense to be doing a lot more of that.”
The next person to speak was Rivercity Rendezvous owner Rafael Delgadillo, who pointed out that bartenders are trained to cut off service before patrons reach a level of intoxication that could lead to unruly behavior.
“Anybody in the liquor business knows when somebody is intoxicated – we’ve taken TiPS Training, and that’s good,” he said. “(So) at this point, they wouldn’t be in the bar anymore. They’ve already been asked to leave.”
Chancy Wilczewski offered the final public comment on the proposed ordinance this week, pointing out that business owners in the United States “have a right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason,” as long as the action doesn’t violate anti-discrimination laws.
As a result, Wilczewski said, the proposed ordinance “is completely unenforceable and virtually pointless, bordering on unnecessary or unreasonable.”
“The ordinance is made completely moot by the fact that a licensee and their agents can just choose to reject service to these people for any number of reasons, completely side-stepping and avoiding the ordinance entirely,” Wilczewski said.
After the public hearing on the proposed ordinance was closed, Councilmember Eric Carr made a motion to adopt the new rule on first reading.
The motion failed when no one else on the council offered to second it.
For more information, call the City of Riverton at (307) 856-2227.