Own Or Manage A Bar? Protect Yourself From Drunk Driving Lawsuits With Security Cameras

If you own or manage a bar, you could be held liable for injuries and damages if an intoxicated patron leaves your establishment and causes an automobile accident. Because of this, it's crucial to train your staff to avoid selling alcohol to patrons who are visibly intoxicated. But it's also critical to have surveillance cameras in and around your property. That way, you'll have proof beyond hearsay should you be taken to court. Here's what you need to know. 

Choosing Surveillance Cameras

You'll want the recordings to be high quality, cover large areas, and have the ability to zoom in closely. Cameras with megapixel technology meet these demands. By recording with megapixel cameras, you'll be able to zoom in to a particular patron and follow them throughout a large area when you are searching for evidence that could show your staff did not contribute to their intoxication.

For example, perhaps your patron in question entered the building already clearly intoxicated or they consumed alcohol that your staff did not serve to them. These types of scenarios would be proof that you were not liable for that particular patron's intoxication and the resulting accident.  

Without cameras with megapixel technology, you'll need more cameras to cover the same area. This could mean you would need to switch between multiple cameras throughout your investigation when you try to figure out exactly what happened during the night in question after you receive notice of a pending lawsuit. 

Keeping Surveillance Video Footage

Since you may not hear of a pending lawsuit for quite a while after an accident, it's crucial that you keep all video footage on file indefinitely. Therefore, do not use a looping recording system which records over previous recordings. Instead, connect your surveillance cameras to a computer so the videos can be stored. 

For more protection, transfer the recordings to off-site cloud storage with a file transfer protocol (FTP). This will send your recordings to a server for safe keeping. That way, there will be no way anyone could compromise the recordings by stealing the computer or deleting the files on your computer. You can set this type of system up to automatically transfer files whenever you'd like, such as hourly or when your establishment closes each evening. 

Speak with a reputable security system specialist for more information about the options available to you based on the specifics of the needs of your establishment. Contact a company like Comtron Systems, Inc. to get started.