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By ANDREA MOSS – Staff Writer
SAN MARCOS —- Anyone who sells or serves alcohol in San Marcos would have to attend mandatory training to make them “responsible beverage servers,” under a proposed ordinance tentatively approved Tuesday by the entire City Council.
The proposed ordinance must be approved a second time before it can take effect. That vote is scheduled for April 28.
If adopted, the proposed ordinance would require bartenders, waiters and waitresses who work at bars and restaurants to attend a free, two-hour class designed to teach them how to spot fake identification.
The classes also cover such topics as how to tell when someone has had too much to drink and how to tell them they cannot have any more alcohol.
Clerks and cashiers at San Marcos stores that sell alcohol also would be covered by the training requirement.
Mayor Jim Desmond got support from Councilman Hal Martin when the mayor said he feared the city was trying to force an unfunded mandate on its businesses, “which we seem to doing more and more.”
Both men voted in favor of the ordinance, however, after they were assured the training classes are already readily available at no charge to the businesses.
And Councilwoman Rebecca Jones said a ride she took with a local sheriff’s deputy last year taught her how useful the training might be.
“It is difficult, when someone’s had a little too much (to drink), to be able to tell that and know how to tell them,” she said.
The city’s Student and Neighborhood Relations Committee drafted the responsible beverage server ordinance at the request of the nonprofit North Inland Community Prevention Program in Poway.
Funded by the county’s Health and Human Services agency, the program works with communities to prevent alcohol- and drug-related problems.
The proposed San Marcos ordinance is modeled after a similar one that Solana Beach adopted in 2007.
Deputy City Manager Lydia Romero told the council Tuesday that the San Marcos version would require employees of bars, restaurants and stores that serve or sell alcohol to attend the special training sessions once every two years.
Those who complete the training would receive certificates that their employers would have to keep on file, she said.
Telling the council she sat through one of the classes last year, Romero said the presenter displayed several identification cards and explained what gave them away as fakes.
Participants also learned conversational techniques that can be used to determine someone’s age, the signs of intoxication, and tips for talking to someone who has reached that point, she said.
Celeste Young, a prevention specialist with the Poway nonprofit, said hairdressers and people in many other professions have to obtain special training before they are allowed to work.
“So why not the gatekeepers of alcohol,” she said.
Displaying San Diego County Sheriff’s Department statistics that showed San Marcos has a higher-than-average rate of alcohol-related vehicle accidents compared to the rest of the county, Young also noted that the city is home to Cal State San Marcos and Palomar College.
“With the increasing student population in San Marcos and no (responsible beverage server ordinance), chances are that these (local) statistics will get higher,” she said.
Judy Slane, who lives in the Coronado Ranch residential development near the university, also urged the council to approve the ordinance, saying that drinking among college-age people is a nationwide problem.
“We need to do this to improve the safety of our community,” she said.
Restaurants, bars and stores would have 180 days to get all their employees trained, if the proposed ordinance is adopted. New hires after that would have 90 days to get their training certificates, and new businesses would be informed about the training requirement when they applied for business licenses.
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April 15th, 2009 | 
