Server-training effort deserves kudos
Montana Tavern Times Editorial
The dedication of Montana's tavern owners, managers and their employees to their businesses have been well documented in the pages of the Montana Tavern Times (for 16 years now!), and that dedication is even more evident in their collective effort to comply with the new server training law that went into effect Oct. 1.
The Montana Legislature passed the server-training law in April. It requires all sellers and servers of alcohol in Montana to be trained within 60 days of hire and every three years thereafter. The measure does not apply to volunteer servers.
Many of our alcohol-serving businesses have been voluntarily training many of their employees for years, but the new law has drawn an enormous response from the tavern businesses.
“There's been an excellent effort by the industry to get all their employees trained,” Shauna Helfert, administrator for the state Liquor Control Division, told the Times in late October.
She said the state's Let's Control It program has trained “close to 10,000” servers.
Other training programs, such as ServSafe and TIPS, have been extremely busy, too. Literally hundreds of training sessions have occurred around the state, as have dozens of train-the-trainer workshops to meet the demand.
“I think the bulk of training has happened,” Helfert said, “and tavern owners have stepped up to meet the requirements.”
That sentiment mirrors Helfert's comments to the MTA convention in September, when she said the tavern businesses were doing an “excellent job” complying with the server-training law.
“That really says great things about you,” she told tavern owners at the Red Lodge convention. “You really want to keep our communities safe.”
Industry associations supported the statewide server-training program in the Legislature because it would provide “one standard” for all jurisdictions in the state, thus avoiding a hodge-podge of rules that would result from each community developing its own mandatory training program, which was already happening.
Testimony throughout the legislative process was nearly unanimous in support of the measure.
So congratulations to tavern owners, managers and servers. Your tremendous server-training response, though not surprising, is to be commended.