Dram Shop Laws in Maryland
The 800 block of West Diamond Avenue in Gaithersburg, Maryland isn’t a “block” in the traditional sense. It is an enormous shopping complex containing multiple businesses. This shopping center is bordered by I-270 to the east and Quince Orchard Road to the west. Running through the middle of all of this is a street called Bureau Drive. In other words, this section of Gaithersburg is surrounded by highways and busy, multiple lane roads. It isn’t a very hospitable environment for pedestrians. There aren’t many bus stops around. There is a MARC station nearby, but that doesn’t make for flexible transportation options. If you want to get to this place, your best bet is to drive.
In the southern corner of the lot is a business called Dogfish Head Alehouse. As you can guess by the name, this is an establishment that serves beer, wine and liquor in addition to food. So the question that we have is this: How much sense does it make to put a business that both serves alcohol and provides a place to drink it in the middle of a parking lot stuck between major roads?
It’s actually a question we have for a lot of bars and restaurants these days. Drive down any major road, or take any exit off of the beltway, and you will see a place where you can buy and drink alcohol where practically the only way in or out is to drive a car. If the Washington, D.C. area is committed to ending drinking and driving, our zoning boards have a strange way of showing it.
We aren’t suggesting that everyone who goes to these places gets drunk and then drives home. But one of the reasons that we focused on Dogfish Head Alehouse is because of a particularly egregious drinking and driving accident that happened there in 2008.
A man named Michael Eaton went to the Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg, which is in the middle of a parking lot and surrounded by a series of major roads. Mr. Eaton went to the bar and started drinking, and he didn’t stop for hours. By the end of the night, he had consumed 17 beers and three shots of hard liquor. In other words, he was extremely drunk.
There was absolutely no way on earth that the bartenders who provided him with all of that alcohol can claim that they didn’t know that Mr. Eaton was drunk. They work in a bar. They know what even three drinks can do, much less 17 beers and three shots of liquor. They were also perfectly aware of the local geography. Mr. Eaton couldn’t have left the place and gotten on the subway. He couldn’t have stepped out onto the street corner to hail a cab. His only options were to call a cab himself (which he didn’t do,) call a friend for a ride (which he didn’t do,) or to walk home.
He didn’t do any of those things. He walked out to his car, which was in the middle of the parking lot, and drove home. And the bartenders who served him 17 beers and 3 shots over the course of an evening simply let him.
The consequences of this inaction by Dogfish Head Alehouse were tragic. Mr. Eaton slammed into a minivan carrying Jazemin Waar and her family while they were both traveling down I-270. Ms. Waar did not survive, and Mr. Eaton is currently serving 8 years in prison.
So what punishment did the establishment receive? The bar that provided Mr. Eaton with enough alcohol to put him well over the legal limit for alcohol consumption and then sent him out to the parking lot? Well, nothing much really happened to them.
There are no laws establishing liability for bars and restaurants that over-serve their customers in Maryland, even if the bar is located in the middle of a parking lot with no public transportation in sight. This means that whatever happens after their customers leave the premises is of no importance to them whatsoever. This is why you have happy hours that last four hours, or “dollar shooter” nights, or any of the other countless promotions that are designed to get people to drink more. There are no consequences for the owners.
We believe that this is wrong, and it is why we are currently representing the family of Jazemin Waar in Maryland’s courts. We believe that her case is the clearest example of why Maryland needs so-called “dram shop laws.” It is our hope that this case will begin the process of establishing dram shop laws in Maryland, as it is in place in other states.
As car accident injury lawyers in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, we have seen more than our share of people getting hurt in easily preventable car accidents, and unfortunately, alcohol was a factor in some of them. While dram shop laws won’t stop drinking and driving, they would certainly make it harder to accomplish. If bars realize that there could be financial consequences for the reckless behavior of their customers, they might take a few minutes and call that patron a cab, or not serve him that fourth drink. And as a result, we might see fewer cases like Jazemin Waar’s death in Maryland. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would certainly be better than this.
Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to anyone in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. who has been hurt due to the recklessness of another driver. If you or a loved one has been in a car accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident case evaluation.
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