You think you're having a bad day now!

Sometimes, little decisions, made in haste to get you through a tiring day with minimum hassle, can have life altering consequences. Here's a good example. Six years ago, a visitor from Fargo, North Dakota, hunting in Saskatchewan stopped for lunch at a restaurant. What could have been a pleasant meal turned instead into life-and-death struggle for the hunter and a five-year nightmare for the former owners of the restaurant and the waitress who served the hunting party.

What would you do in this situation? Would you take the time to get your facts straight before answering a customer's question, or would you make your best guess and leave it at that? How would you handle the situation if the restaurant is crowded, full of noisy families with screaming babies demanding your attention, and you're tired? Would you really make the effort? Would it occur to you how badly things can go if you make the wrong judgement?

Responsible Service of Alcohol

No one likes to put a damper on a good time, but people still need to understand the kinds of liability they face when they serve alcohol, especially in a commercial or organized setting. You need effective strategies that let people enjoy themselves, help you serve responsibly and let you identify guests who drink too much. That's where responsible-service-of-alcohol programs come in.

The program that STEC uses, Serve it Right Saskatchewan (SIRS), uses three broad "learning cycles", covered in six modules.

Rising Tide: Impaired Driving Awareness Week 2012

The "rising tide" of liability against commercial liquor establishments and servers
This week is Impaired Driving Awareness Week in Saskatchewan. Drinking and driving is the leading cause of fatal crashes in our province.

About 45.1 per cent of fatal crashes in the province are alcohol-related, above the Canadian average of 37.9 per cent. By some estimates, impaired driving costs Canadians more than $225.5 billion a year.

Whether we like it or not, tourism industry operators have a stake in solving this problem.