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New York Post
16-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Bartenders' silent message to drunk patrons sparks heated viral debate
Bartenders are discreetly telling intoxicated customers they're cut off for the night — stirring up heated debate online. Some workers are giving out printed cards that say, 'You have been cut off,' letting patrons know they won't be served any more alcohol, according to photos shared on social media platforms. 'Please leave quietly and no one will know,' says the message. The small cards have apparently been given out in bars in New Jersey and North Carolina. 'It has been a pleasure to serve you, but it is time to leave for the night,' the cards also say. Social media users flooded the comments sections with thoughts. Many said it avoids embarrassing people. 6 Some workers are giving out printed cards that say, 'You have been cut off,' letting patrons know they won't be served any more alcohol. Sara Sandbo/Arctic Bell Designs 'If I'm getting cut off, I like the discreetness of this,' one woman wrote in a Facebook group for Boston restaurants. 'I really like this technique,' another woman said. 'I'd follow the direction to the best of my ability at the time.' One man said he would 'pay my bill, leave a nice tip, order an Uber.' 6 Many said it avoids embarrassing people. Sara Sandbo, owner of Fairbanks, Alaska-based Arctic Bell Designs, sells a $3 digital template for businesses to download and print. 'As a former 911 dispatcher, I've been on the receiving end of calls involving intoxicated customers who refused to leave, so I wanted to create a tool that could help prevent those kinds of situations,' Sandbo told Fox News Digital. But many people questioned how the card recipient would get home. 'You shouldn't be just asking them to leave,' one woman said. '[The card] should indicate [the bar] can also help arrange a ride if they don't have a sober one.' Bars and restaurants are generally not required by law to ensure a drunk customer gets home safely. But some states – including New York, according to the NYC Bar Association – have 'dram shop' laws that hold alcohol-serving establishments responsible if they serve alcohol to minors or to those visibly intoxicated who then cause harm. 'Someone that's intoxicated and cut off NEEDS to be verbally told.' 6 Sara Sandbo, owner of Fairbanks, Alaska-based Arctic Bell Designs, sells a $3 digital template for businesses to download and print. Nomad_Soul – Some said a card might not be enough for a person to leave. 'If you're hammered, would you know to do the right thing?' one Facebook user wrote. 'Someone that's intoxicated and cut off NEEDS to be verbally told,' someone wrote on Reddit. 6 Bars and restaurants are generally not required by law to ensure a drunk customer gets home safely. chika_milan – Others feared the move could anger the customer. 'I don't like it,' a former bartender said on Facebook. 'Potentially confrontational.' Said another person, 'Some will quietly leave and others will make a scene.' Many internet users said they'd handle the situation differently. 'I met a nice old lady who was going through some stuff and she had too much to drink,' a Reddit user with bartending experience wrote. 'I talked to her politely, asked her to drink some water and [said] I cannot serve her anymore.' The Redditor added, 'I can't imagine slapping a card in her face. How obnoxious.' Many agreed they would offer food or water or give the customer the check. 6 Many agreed they would offer food or water or give the customer the check. Tkachenko Alexey – 'As a bartender, I generally don't use the term 'cut off,'' one woman said on Facebook. 'I politely place a water in front of them instead of the drink they ordered.' Other bartenders, however, said they supported the gesture. 'I'm a bartender and love this,' one woman wrote on Facebook. 6 'I'm a bartender and love this,' one woman wrote on Facebook. Nomad_Soul – Derek Brown, a bartender and founder of Drink Company, a hospitality consulting agency in Washington, D.C., said sometimes people get intoxicated faster than others expect. 'Some people walk in and don't seem very intoxicated,' he told Fox News Digital. 'You don't know how much they've already had. Then it just goes downhill.' Bartenders try to ensure people have a great time while keeping them safe without embarrassing them, Brown added. 'I really love that there are creative and thoughtful ways to do that,' he said. 'Apart from giving them a card, I'd suggest that, if they have a kind friend with them, you say, 'Hey, I've noticed your friend has had a few too many, and we don't want him to be frustrated or cause a scene, but it would be awesome if you guys closed out your bill and left.'' Fox News Digital reached out to the original posters and businesses for comment. Similarly printed cards are sold on Amazon and can be purchased in bulk.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
We sat with 350 lawyers as they strategized fighting Trump. Big Law was absent — but Smaller Law is itching to fight.
We sat with 350 attorneys for the NYC Bar Association's "Defending Justice" program. There was great alarm over Trump's Big Law executive orders and attacks on the judiciary. "What we are witnessing today is not normal, and it must not be normalized," the bar's president said. It's a staid and stately room, the New York City Bar Association meeting hall in Midtown Manhattan. The century-old walls are trimmed with red velvet and high Corinthian columns, and famous alumni, including Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, look down from their oil portraits. The hall was far from staid on Monday night, though, as Business Insider sat with 350 New York City lawyers for a program called "Defending Justice." Instead, there were calls for protests, op-ed writing, and lawsuits. "We should bring as many lawsuits as we possibly can to stop the administration from doing what it can," urged civil rights lawyer Ilann Maazel, a panelist. At least two lawyers used the decidedly extra-legal term "five-alarm fire." Some spoke of their plans to attend a May 1 protest and their concerns over having their phones searched at the US border. "If you can go on Signal, I recommend you do," one lawyer told another over a post-panel buffet table. The unrest in the room had two main causes. The first concerned attacks on judges, including recent threats to their safety and the Department of Justice's flirting with the outright defiance of a court's order. The second concern was President Trump's executive orders targeting Big Law firms. The White House has cited national security risks and claims of racism concerning DEI efforts when it imposed penalties on Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and others. Paul Weiss and eight other firms struck a deal, while Perkins and three other firms, all hit with similar orders, have sued and won temporary court orders blocking Trump's EOs from going into effect. The legal profession is duty-bound to speak out against Trump's attacks on the judiciary and his EOs, the bar's president, Muhammad U. Faridi, told the group. "Lawyers do not serve the executive — they serve the law," Faridi said, kicking off the evening's program. "What we are witnessing today is not normal," he added. "And it must not be normalized." Monday's program was subtitled "Mobilizing the Legal Profession to Stand Up for the Rule of Law." So we were not surprised when much of the four-hour program focused on resistance. Throughout the night, the call to resist came with words of anger. An audience member demanded that the group "expel from this membership all the partners of Paul Weiss." This was gently shot down from the dias by Maazel, who called instead for urging Big Law's capitulators to reconsider. "It's not too late to change your mind," Maazel said to a round of applause. Maazel, a partner at the law firm Emery Celli, said the big firms that cut deals with the Trump administration could still push back if Trump tries to move the goalposts. And he urged lawyers in the room, including retired lawyers, to step up and help anyone targeted by the administration. "There is an inexhaustible need for lawyers right now," he said. "Our phones are ringing off the hook." Sometimes the call to resist came with an invocation of history. Vince Warren, executive director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, helps defend Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student arrested by federal immigration authorities for his role in pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus. As a panelist on Monday night, he drew parallels between the US and authoritarian tendencies of India and Hungary, where lawyers or their clients can be "disappeared." "We have to envision ourselves as fighting for our own lives," he said. Some said the obstacles to resisting Trump were significant. A lawyer who retired after a career in banking worried he may have to buy his own legal malpractice insurance policy if he wanted to volunteer. For his whole career, he said, his employers had always dealt with that. Another raised a similar issue: He no longer had access to pricey legal research tools like Westlaw or Lexis. Christopher Pioch, a business litigator who moderated one of the panels, said that Big Law firms don't incentivize their younger lawyers to be civically involved. Most have policies that encourage pro bono, but the focus is generally on billable work. "Because of how we've quantified everything, you really miss out on participating in organizations like the bar association because there's no benefit to doing so," said Pioch. The evening's conversation also touched on the red-hot divide between those Big Law firms that have cut deals with Trump and those that are fighting back. A few firms — including Paul Weiss, Milbank and A&O Shearman — have agreed to collectively devote $940 million in pro bono time to priorities that dovetail with Trump's interests. Meanwhile, firms that have resisted Trump's demands, including Jenner & Block, Covington & Burling, and WilmerHale, stand head and shoulders above other firms when it comes to volunteering for pro bono projects, one speaker noted. Panelist Shira A. Scheindlin, a retired US district court judge, earned the biggest applause of the evening by wishing aloud that the law firms that capitulated had not. "If the law firms had all acted collectively and resisted those clearly unconstitutional orders, I think those orders would've quickly disappeared," the retired judge said of the Big Law divide. (Scheindlin noted that only Justices Alito and Thomas dissented from the Court's order blocking Venezuelan deportations — and got the night's biggest laugh by urging, "Pray for the good health of the remaining seven justices.") Other lawyers noted that the rules of ethics can be barriers to collective action. When one lawyer suggested that large law firms agree not to poach clients from competitors who've been singled out by Trump, one member from the audience muttered to her seat-mate, "A client can choose whoever they want." Many in the room described fear around taking action. Scheindlin said some judges have had pizzas sent to their homes by people using the name of Judge Esther Salas's son. Salas is a federal judge whose son and husband were shot dead by a disgruntled litigant who showed up on her doorstep. Many described a fear among lawyers of losing one's job solely for speaking out. One participant described a recent protest at Bryant Park where a small group of lawyers wore masks out of concern for appearing in an online photo seen by their bosses. Lawyers who worked for nonprofits mused about the possibility of their organization's tax-deductible status being subject to an audit. Another said his nonprofit moved its archives to a secure location offsite and encouraged other lawyers to think about what would happen if their offices were raided by the FBI. Still, among the rows and rows of lawyers, some hope broke through the anger and frustration. There was a good deal of gratitude directed towards the judiciary. "The attitude in which we're living now is one of fear and intimidation," and yet many judges have been "very brave, very courageous," said Scheindlin, the retired judge. "Can you imagine if we did not have a judiciary right now?" she asked from the dais. "Every one of these executive orders would be carried out." Maazel noted three reasons there is "room for hope." One was Harvard University's decision to sue the Trump administration. The second was the Supreme Court's late-night order over the weekend barring further deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. The third reason for hope? A recent town hall held by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley in Fort Madison, Iowa. "So all these folks in Iowa — these are not, you know, Manhattan liberals — they were very upset, not with tariffs, not with inflation, but with a man who was sent to El Salvador without any kind of due process," Maazel said, referring to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorean national who was deported despite a court order that allowed him to seek legal protection in the US. "And that just gave me the illuminance of hope." Read the original article on Business Insider
