Something happened tonight, and I really need to get it off my chest.
So, for a little bit of backstory, there used to be this regular who was clearly an alcoholic.
A couple of months ago we witnessed him get a DUI in front of our restaurant (before he had even come inside. He had parked, and the cops had followed him in).
After we witnessed that this guy came into the restaurant a couple more times and was clearly intoxicated. However we didn’t realize he was intoxicated until after he stood up to leave. I’m talking walking sideways, slurring his speech and stumbling into things. This is only after we had served him two to three glasses of wine, so there was clearly something else going on. Maybe he drank somewhere else before hand, or maybe he was on pills/drugs. None of us could really tell, we just know that this guy was way more wasted than he should have been given how much he had been served.
My general manager, and my assistant manager, both decided that we would no longer serve him alcohol, although he would be more than welcome to still eat at our place. After my assistant manager told him we wouldn’t serve him more alcohol we did not see him for at least a month and a half to to months.
Until tonight.
Tonight I was the shift-lead and was working with only the bartender (Super slow Sunday). I told the bartender “Hey, that guy’s back! Remember, we can’t serve him any more alcohol.” He told me he didn’t remember anyone telling him that. Then he proceeded to serve him a glass of wine. At that moment, I felt extremely uncomfortable, and I felt like I was put into a really awkward situation. I felt like I needed additional guidance, so I called my assistant manager and told her the exact situation. She told me that I should speak to the patron to tell him that that was going to be his only glass of wine, and if he had any more questions he could either speak to my assistant manager or my manager when they were in tomorrow morning. My assistant manager told me that she would speak to the bartender next time she saw him. I am friends with this dude(the bartender). We have worked together for years. I felt like I should give him a gentle heads up about that, and so I relayed this information to him and told him that he would probably be spoken to about it, and that it wasn’t a big deal, but that he put me in a super awkward situation. He got extremely pissed off, and refused to talk to me about it. He completely shut down, and asked to leave. mind you this was about an hour and a half before we closed so he literally left me all by myself for the remainder of the evening.
I am super sensitive and started to cry. I feel terrible about the situation. I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble. I talked to my assistant manager because I did not know what to do and I needed guidance. I feel awful. I don’t think he’s gonna get fired. In fact he probably won’t because he’s otherwise a very reliable employee, but he was super pissed and now I just feel awful. Now I am second-guessing everything about what happened.
I’m second-guessing talking to my assistant manager about it. I wish things had gone down differently, but I do know I did the right thing.
I don’t really know what I’m looking for right now. I think I just need some additional guidance and maybe some validation.
it’s hours later. I’m still crying about it.
Has anyone else had to ever deal with anything like this before?
I want to talk to my general manager about it tomorrow, but I’m afraid of escalating the situation.
What would any of ya’ll done in my situation??