People associate bars and restaurants with fun, food, and friends. Still, anyone who’s responsible for one knows that a lot goes into making sure everyone has a good time. There’s also a lot of red tape to navigate if you’re going to serve alcohol, a fact that’s especially good to be mindful of in the state of Texas.
Fortunately, getting TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) certified can help you better understand the laws and regulations you must uphold.
How Getting TABC Certified Benefits Your Business
You probably trained your bartenders and servers on how to take and prepare an order. But alcohol is more than just a product – in the wrong hands, and in the wrong amounts, it’s a deadly weapon. So many alcohol-fueled fights and auto accidents all begin right there, at an otherwise normal establishment.
If someone’s health or property is injured after a night of drinking, who is on the hook for it? Many people think the drunk aggressor alone is to blame, but the business itself can be jeopardized. The number one reason business owners and managers get their staff certified is to reduce the likelihood that they’ll be held liable if alcohol-precipitated trouble arises.
How does TABC do this? By educating you and your staff in law and procedure, which helps prevent incidents from ever arising. Instead of simply knowing to check for ID, TABC courses teach students how to review identification for veracity. This skill alone saves you thousands of dollars in fines.
It also helps us spot how and when to cut someone off. Serving an individual who is already intoxicated is seen as a principle cause in accidents and conflicts that occur after that extra drink. Denying a drunk “just one more drink” keeps everyone safe, and helps your business stay open.
How To Get TABC Certified
Does the cost of continuing education for everyone who works for you sound prohibitive? You’ll be pleased to learn that many programs offer group discounts. In addition, you don’t need to train everyone plus the busboy in order to protect your customers and business. Managers, supervisors, servers, and bartenders are typically a good start. In other words, anyone who might touch alcohol or make decisions about alcohol.
Moreover, your certification will last for two years. And you won’t have to travel to get the job done. According to http://americansafetycouncil.com/content/TABC-certification, state-approved courses are available online.
But how much time does it take? The estimate for completing the certification is just two hours – short enough to be completed in a day, for attentive students. However, everyone can go at their own pace. For instance, if your employees choose to use their breaks to do the training, it can still be done in under a week.
Once you and your staff have passed the final exam, all results will be sent to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, who, under the Safe Harbor Act, won’t automatically remove your permit if certain infractions do occur.
Certification is protection. The TABC prevents the loss of your liquor license, but it also teaches staff how to sell and serve alcohol responsibly. At the end of the day, there’s no telling what tragedies TABC certification can help us avoid, as responsible practices save lives.
