Posted on 01/25/2005 5:30:32 AM PST by SJackson
I once worked at a football stadium. I sold programs. I was 14. Before the game, I lined up with the other vendors, including the guys who sold beer. They had to be older, of course, but they still trudged through the stands, like me, hoping for customers.
At the end of the day, like me, they pocketed, in cash, a small percentage of what they brought in. And they went home, many via bus or subway.
They were nice guys, but not men — and I say this politely — whom I would necessarily entrust with life-and-death decisions. Apparently, that is now their role. At least it was last week, when a New Jersey jury awarded $135 million in damages to the family of a 7-year-old girl who was paralyzed in a drunken-driving accident involving a football fan.
The fan, Daniel Lanzaro, drank six large beers during a 1999 game at Giants Stadium, beers he purchased from a vendor who took a $10 tip from Lanzaro to ignore the stadium's two-beer-at-a-time limit. This is hardly new, by the way. When I worked in stadiums, vendors did all kinds of things for cash tips.
Anyhow, Lanzaro was drunk, more than twice the legal limit for driving, when he got in his car. The family sued him, but he didn't have much. It sued the concessionaire, Aramark, which had a lot.
And it won.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Why not sue the police department for letting him on the road? Or maybe the car manufacturer for allowing the car to start with a drunk at the wheel. It never ends with bottom feeding lawyers.
I think I will sue Mitch for poor eyesight brought on by reading sports programs in the dark.
I agree but then don't BLAME the POT sellers or DRUG sellers
This decision is crazy. Some drunk at a Giants game has an accident, and now the whole country has to adapt because of his conduct? What has happened to this country?
This is in NJ -- a state where the host of a party can be sued if one of the guests gets in a drunk driving accident.
NJ is a nanny state.
The ONLY reason Aramark was sued was because they have the deepest pockets. And people think the ends justifies the means.
Mich Albom writing for JWR? What's up with that? Is this clueless leftist clown branching out of radio and spilling his moral vacuousness into print? In typical liberal fashion, Albom cries a river and still can't reach a firm conclusion. Mr. Albom has all the spine of a jellyfish.
Was it the guy who was drunk or the vending company or the poor beer vendor or the NFL or, or, or. Weeping copious tears for the little girl who was killed by some drunken bum, his big point is that we shouldn't blame the beer vendor because he is a guy just like he was in his salad days hustling to make a buck.
So what.
The unwritten conclusion of the story is to nail is the drunk and that is the end of the story. Finis. The moral, of course, should be that doing bad should get bad. But lefties shy clear of morals, they want pathos. And the step-child of leftist policies by going after deeper pockets, because they hold more money, is not the correct answer to any equation of justice either. Funny how Mitch doesn't examine that problem too deeply.
Oh well. Let's all have a good cry and let's not get anything done.
I certainly hope JWR sweeps out its stable of writers because sh*t like this draws flies.
Or maybe something's wrong with the system that allows 80,000 fans to get drunk at a baseball stadium and then says they can't drive home, legally...
The vender's goal is to sell as much alcohol as possible in the allotted time, before he loses the customer to drive away...
What, a person can't enjoy a ball game if he's sober???
I agree with the main points Albom makes in the article. I am a beer aficionado(only crafty brews or select imports no mass produced crap for me) and am avid sports fan.However, it would not upset me in the least if all alcohol sales are banned from sporting events. This alone would not be enough. They also need to ban alcohol in the parking lots before the game and make examples out of some drunk driver by having some police roaming the parking lots, looking for obvious drunks, call ahead to patrol cars waiting outside the parking lots. Even though I never drive drunk and definitely know when to say when, in a 70,000 seat stadium, there will be at least a hundred AHs who can't and then get behind the wheel.
Besides, attending any sporting event these days has degenerated into an excuse for getting plastered for a good percentage of the crowd. Anyone who had gone to an NFL or college football game in the past 10 years can't deny this. It always seems like there always will be some jackass (with a big gut no less) who feels he needs to pound down a six pack or two, paint his body and act like an AH in the hopes that he will be picked up by the TV cameras.
This doesn't even take into account the fan violence and crude behavior (e.g.public urination, profanity ) that now have become rote. It's especially bad when fathers can't take their under 10 years old sons to a game as they would be exposed to this. Hell, for me, I can't stand to be around these types. It's gotten to the point where I won't go anymore.
a New Jersey jury awarded $135 million in damages to the family of a 7-year-old girl who was paralyzed in a drunken-driving accident involving a football fan.
Um, how many pot smokers have you heard of lately doing things like this? I would rather be surrounded by "stoned" drivers than drunk ones anytime.
THat is my point
Dear SJackson,
"The fan, Daniel Lanzaro, drank six large beers during a 1999 game at Giants Stadium, beers he purchased from a vendor who took a $10 tip from Lanzaro to ignore the stadium's two-beer-at-a-time limit. This is hardly new, by the way. When I worked in stadiums, vendors did all kinds of things for cash tips."
No, sorry. I've been offered lots more than $10 to break the rules at FedEx Field when working at the concession stands (one of our local Knights of Columbus Councils holds the contract for the stand, and we work it to earn money for our Councils).
At FedEx Field, beers sales close at the end of the 3rd quarter. I've been offered as much as $100 to break that rule by a couple of minutes.
No way, no how.
"It is silly to think that vendors, in a stadium stuffed with 70,000 screaming fans, can play a beer-soaked Solomon and tell fans 'no.'"
We say "no" all the time. Just part of the job.
sitetest
How in the hell was such a vile, contemptible human being-with minimal political skills-ever elected to a United States Senate seat?
It's beyond my comprehension.
Why should anybody be surprised? In a time where bartenders have to babysit drunks since responsibility has been shifted to them instead of the idiots that willingly get behind the wheel of a car when they are intoxicated, I am stunned this did not happen a lot sooner.
No worse than suing gun manufacturers for some idiot shooting someone. I don't blame lawyers, they found a way to make some money. Good for them. I blame idiot judges and allegedly 'compassionate' juries for this lunacy.
This had many details of the incident not included in this editorial.
It's fun to bash lawyers (they certainly deserve it, and the tort system desperately needs reform), but in this case the right decision was reached.
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