Intervention fails to change culture of over-service / over-consumption in California college bars and restaurants
Responsible Retailing Forum
January 25, 2021
Boston, Massachusetts —Over-service of alcohol in bars and restaurants contributes to an array of community problems, including drinking and driving, crime, and violence. The Responsible Retailing Forum (RRForum) has completed a study using “pseudo-intoxicated” mystery shoppers to evaluate the SSTOP program (Stop Service to Obviously-impaired Patrons) to help bars and restaurants reduce over-service. In 18 California college communities, actors exhibiting obvious signs of impairment visited establishments frequented by young patrons and asked to be served an alcoholic beverage. After each of three visits, owner-operators were notified whether staff offered to serve customers who were already clearly impaired. Additionally, the SSTOP program provided a link to online videos for managers and staff reinforcing responsible alcohol service conduct.
“Baseline data prior to the SSTOP implementation showed that the prevalence of over-service was high, almost 90%, slightly higher but not inconsistent with previous studies,” according to Joel Grube, PhD, Senior Scientist at the Prevention Research Center / Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) who headed the evaluation of SSTOP. “Unfortunately, the SSTOP inspections, reports, and training resources failed to reduce the over-service rates. Given the public health consequences of over-service, we need to develop programs that effectively address this issue.”
The failure of SSTOP to move the needle on over-service / over-consumption was surprising to Brad Krevor, PhD, RRForum President and the Principal Investigator for the NIAAA-funded research to develop and evaluate SSTOP. RRForum’s earlier study of 21 Matterstmshowed that feedback from young, legal-age mystery shoppers improved ID-checking rates significantly — from the low 80’s to the low 90’s. “We thought reporting whether staff over-served pseudo-intoxicated actors would increase compliance with over-service laws, at least temporarily.” Whether the ineffectiveness of SSTOP indicates a cultural acceptance of over-service in college communities or whether it shows that licensees and their staff have little or no concern that over-service will have consequences for them, needs to be explored.”
Media Contact: Dr. Brad Krevor: krevor@rrforum.org (617) 454-4676.