GIA board talks election, legislation
By Paul Tash
Montana Tavern Times
While dangerous road conditions kept some board members away, and with others attending the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, the Gaming Industry Association's quarterly board meeting took place Nov. 17 without a quorum.
Still, those who were able to attend received a good bit of information, including an election update and a legislative preview. They also after lunch heard from Gambling Control Division Administrator Rick Ask (see accompanying story).
Regarding the Nov. 2 election, Peterson said that Republicans now hold a 68-32 majority in the House, and a 28-22 advantage in the Senate. A recount is set for Dec. 5 in the Senate race between Roy Brown and Kendall Van Dyke, who was ahead by eight votes.
GIA Executive Director Neil Peterson said the GIA contributed to 16 legislative races, and that all 16 candidates that GIA contributed to won.
“So we batted one thousand percent,” Peterson said. “I appreciate everybody who took the time to send in checks.”
Peterson said he isn't anticipating any sort of tax increase passing in the Legislature. He doubted the Republican-controlled chambers would pass a tax hike, and even they did, the governor has said he wouldn't support any kind of tax increases.
Regarding upcoming legislation, Peterson said several bills are liquor-related.
Petersen said a host of bills will be dealing with DUI and “supposedly changing the culture of drinking in Montana,” he said
“What will probably come out of this next session is LC0367, which will mandate alcohol server and sales training,” he said.
During the interim, Peterson said, the Law and Justice Committee was presented with three different draft proposals, including one by the Department of Revenue for “fairly large new programs” that would create a new database to track all servers of alcohol to make sure they've been trained.
“The committee didn't want to go there,” he said. “A this point there won't be any big database maintained by the Department of Revenue.”
He said a more acceptable and sensible scenario is for a new question to appear on the license renewal application that will ask employers if they've trained all their employees.
Other possible parts of the measure would:
• Allow employers to have 60 to 90 days to train a new employee after hiring;
• Accept all approved training programs, including the Department of Revenue program; TIPS, TAMS, SERV-SAFE, and even approved in-house programs.
• Mandate that training would be good for three years.
A potential problem regarding server training has come up, however. The city of Deer Lodge, working with the DUI Task Force, has been working on a local ordinance that mandates server training.
Several representatives of the tavern and gaming industries met with Deer Lodge city council in early November to express a number of concerns, Peterson said.
He said industry reps told them the state Legislature is likely going to pass a statewide program for mandatory server training, which would make the local ordinance unnecessary.
Also, Peterson said, “I told them I've got a lot of members who operate in multiple locations. So if every city is going to do their own mandatory program, each city is going to have its little idiosyncrasies …, which is going to make it hard for people to comply.”
Another problem, Peterson said, is that Deer Lodge only recognized the Department of Revenue's server training program. He said industry reps urged Deer Lodge to recognize all approved programs.
Despite industry concerns, Peterson said it appears that Deer Lodge “is not going to back off” adopting the ordinance, though it may allow for more programs to be used.
However, Peterson said that by the time the Deer Lodge plan can become law, probably in July or August, the state's program will likely be in place, hopefully prompting the local council to reconsider the matter.
Conversation then moved on to the issue of over-serving, and server liability.
Joe McKenney said that even when an employee gets an over-served patron in a cab and gets them home, “I'm not sure that you're off the hook.”
He related a recent news article about an Anaconda man who went home after drinking in a Butte bar and committed suicide, and the family is suing the bar for over-serving.
“Take the suicide out of the picture,” McKenney said. “What if someone falls out of bed or they fall down the stairs after an establishment got them home safely. Where does our liability end?
Peterson added that another potential problem exists when someone “comes in your place to have one drink, but they've had several at other places. Or you get them home and they come back out again.”
The discussion brought no answers, but those in attendance agreed that litigation is always a possibility.
Peterson also mentioned that legislation is proposed that would prohibit the smoking of medical marijuana in public places, thus including it under the Clean Indoor Air Act.
In other action, Peterson reported that:
• The average time to complete a license application is now 60 days, adding that the abbreviated application Form 37 is really making a difference.
• Only 32 machines in nine locations in the state aren't reporting on the Gentax tier 2 system, and so are still doing paper reporting.
• The GIA's annual meeting will be in Bozeman May 17-18 at the Gran Tree Inn.
The GIA board next meets Jan. 27 in Helena, the day after MTA's legislative reception at Jorgenson's.