How To Avoid Losing Your Liquor License
How do you lose your liquor license?
Knowing the answer to that question is important to make sure that you comply with local laws on selling and serving alcoholic drinks in your establishment.
Dining and drinking establishment owners go through a long and costly process of getting a liquor license. You will have to invest a lot of time, effort, and money in simply preparing all the documents and requirements to submit to the local regulatory board to eventually be allowed to serve alcoholic beverages in your restaurant, bar, or club.
Should authorities revoke your liquor license, all your investments will go down the drain and this will have various dire effects on your business; these includes a decrease in sales and profits and difficulties in getting the permit reinstated or securing a new one.
To make sure you never lose your liquor license, Florida business consultants share some helpful tips below:
Instruct your staff to always check the IDs of customers they suspect are minors.
In nearly all states, the legal drinking age is 21 years old. Serving underage customers or minors will land you in a lot of trouble.
To be certain that your establishment will serve alcohol to customers of legal age only, instruct your staff to check the IDs of persons they think are too young to be drinking. Also, make sure your staff knowshow to spot fake identification — they should be positive that the person in the photo looks old enough to be the one on the ID and the face shape and facial characteristics must be the same.
Avoid over-serving customers.
Continuing to serve a person who is already tipsy or clearly drunk can lead to some very serious consequences for your establishment. Intoxication can lead to an accident, injury, and even death of the customer or other persons and this can mean that your business or staff may be held liable.
Aside from the possibility of paying damages, you can also lose your liquor license — not just temporarily but even permanently. It is therefore crucial to make sure that all of your employees are aware of these possible consequences and they know when to refuse to serve a customer already under the influence.
Prevent the repeated occurrence of disorderly conduct.
Your liquor license can be reviewed or revoked if illegal gambling, violence and fights, and public drunkenness seem to happen a lot in your place of business. If you repeatedly receive complaints of disturbing the peace, your permit may also be subject to a review or cancellation. In such instances, it is best to look into how much alcohol is being served to your customers and work with your staff to find ways to maintain an environment of respect and dignity in your establishment.
Make sure all your service staff are properly trained.
Lastly, have your service staff undergo a Smart Serve program and get the certificate before allowing them to start serving alcohol. Make sure that all your employees who will be serving alcohol are of legal age as well. If your employees are caught serving without undergoing the training and they are under-aged, you may find yourself losing your liquor license.