Police lack follow-up with Places where DUI suspects Drank

By admin

Questions about personal responsibility are prevalent in discussions about DUI arrests and offenses, especially in reference to bars and restaurants serving alcohol to customers who are later arrested for DUI.

Should an establishment that serves alcohol be legally responsible for the actions of someone consuming alcohol at that bar? State DUI laws vary, and Connecticut is one state in which police follow-up investigation of alcohol-serving bars and restaurants is available as a legal option.

Recent reports, however, indicate that following a crackdown on DUIs, police in Connecticut may not have followed up with the establishments where DUI suspects claimed to have been drinking.

In Connecticut, the state Liquor Control Commission has the authority to fine or suspend the liquor license of bars and restaurants based on their connection to DUI suspects. In the course of a DUI arrest, law enforcement officials often record the bar or restaurant that served those arrested for suspicion of a DUI offense.

Recently, journalists in Connecticut investigated the follow-up of these bars and restaurants, finding that police did not submit a single establishments’ information to the Liquor Control Commission in the several months of a crackdown and for weeks afterward.

The crackdown came after a rash of DUI-related accidents and deaths in Northeast Connecticut, as police increased patrols along the interstate highway, in an effort to catch more drunk drivers and to decrease alcohol-related accidents, injuries and fatalities.

Extra patrols dedicated to weekend DUI coverage, in addition to those regularly scheduled, led to more than 80 arrests. As a part of the arrest process, officers routinely asked DUI suspects where they had consumed alcoholic beverages and noted it in a standard form.

Following the crackdown, which occurred in the spring of this year, the investigation revealed that officers were not following up with the establishments in question after making an arrest, even as they gathered the necessary information to do so.

After a DUI arrest, wherein the driver tells the police where he or she drank the alcohol, police can forward that information on to the liquor commission, along with a police report.

In a response to the assertion that police weren’t pursuing this option, a police spokesperson claimed that police do follow up with the restaurants or bars that arise during the course of the arrest, noting that the context and particular details of a given incident determine the implementation and nature of the investigation.

Whatever your opinion about the responsibility of bars and restaurants in DUI cases, it would appear based on these investigations that the police in Northeast Connecticut are not taking that route. Why that may be is another question.