Steer Clear of Legal Liability with an Illinois BASSET Card
If you need an On-Premise or Off-Premise Illinois BASSET card, it’s probably because your boss is making you. Your employer could get in a lot of legal trouble if you’re serving or selling alcohol without BASSET certification. But did you know being BASSET certified also helps you stay out of trouble? You personally, not just your employer, can get into legal trouble if you serve or sell alcohol to a minor or someone who is visibly intoxicated.
There are two types of legal liability you can face for selling or serving alcohol to a minor or intoxicated person: civil and criminal.
Civil
This typically means money. Dram Shop laws in many states, including Illinois, allow people who are harmed by intoxicated customers to sue the establishment that over-sold or over-served alcohol to the customer. Under Illinois law, the amount a person can recover is capped between $72,000 and $89,000 for 2021, depending on the situation. A person also has to bring their suit within one year of being harmed. Since most individual servers won’t have $72,000 – $89,000 to pay out, it makes sense that many people harmed would go after the employer. However, a person harmed can sue anyone they want… The existence of Dram Shop laws allowing suits against establishments does not mean suits against others, such as servers and bartenders, are prohibited. And, the award cap and one-year time limit that applies to Dram Shop suits does not apply to other types of suits.
Criminal
As you well know if you’ve taken our course, it’s totally illegal to sell alcohol to an intoxicated person (or to a minor). It follows then that if you do it, you’ve committed a crime, right? Right. In Illinois, it’s a crime that could result in spending a year in jail – Not to mention having something added to your criminal record that will follow you and have to be explained for years to come.
Don’t let all this doom and gloom get you down! If you’re BASSET certified with BASSET On The Fly, you’ve got all you need to avoid these unpleasant outcomes. We cover everything you need to know, including all the details on signs of intoxication and tips for cutting a customer off. Once you’ve learned how to safely serve and sell through our course, you’ll have the BASSET card to prove it.
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