Bay Area Restaurant Guide

Police departments throughout the Bay Area have been capitalizing on the activity surrounding some of the more popular restaurants in this community, setting up DUI checkpoints to make sure that patrons enjoying the world-class drinking and dining opportunities throughout this region aren’t putting any community members at risk a long way.

For years now, police departments throughout this region have been announcing where and when they are going to set up many of the DUI checkpoints that stretch throughout the San Francisco bay area.

These checkpoints have proven to be a wonderful deterrent against individuals thinking about driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence. DUI arrests across the board are down significantly in this part of California, even if San Francisco and the surrounding area still has relatively higher instances of DUIs and DWIs than most of the rest of this state.

Just this past week, police officers in Santa Rosa screened more than 800 different vehicles moving through a popular neighborhood filled with amazing restaurants, resting for different individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol. Two other people were arrested for possessing illegal drugs or having a probation violation, and 23 more individuals had been cited for driving without a license or driving when their license was suspended/revoked.

In the Rohnert Park community, almost 1200 vehicles were stopped and moved through a DUI checkpoint outside of a bustling restaurant community as well. A single person was arrested for driving under the influence, with another being arrested for violating probation as well as a domestic violence restraining order.

As you can see, both of these checkpoints proved to be a fantastic deterrent at stopping people visiting the restaurants in those areas from drinking too much and then choosing to slide behind the wheel of their vehicle.

Of course, DUI checkpoints aren’t perfect solutions when people are committed to drinking and driving.

A young man, whose identity has not been released to the public, crashed directly into a DUI checkpoint in Fremont after leaving a local area restaurant. His vehicle jumped the curb around the Stevenson Boulevard neighborhood, zoomed up a small hill, and then crashed directly into a police cruiser that had been set up at the DUI checkpoint.

No injuries were reported, including no injuries to the driver that was obviously inebriated, though witnesses did say that the driver just narrowly missed plowing into several of the officers that had been working that DUI checkpoint.

Interestingly enough, police officers later said that the suspect that has been arrested and cited with driving under the influence was also a person of interest for another suspected DUI crash that occurred just a week prior out in Union City.

For the most part however, DUI checkpoints are doing a great job at persuading the community members and visitors to the Bay Area to give up any ideas of driving while intoxicated. Hopefully these instances will continue to dwindle downwards, and maybe one day folks won’t have to worry about drunk drivers sharing the road with more responsible individuals.

How Restaurants are Liable when Customers Slip and Fall in their Premises?

Restaurants are wholly responsible for the safety of their customers. The upkeep of the establishment, everything from the quality of the food and beverages being served to ensuring there are no hazardous materials in the premises that can cause any health problem is the sole responsibility of the restaurant owner. In some cases, the manager or the chef of the restaurant may also be held responsible. The restaurant is not only responsible for the well-being and safety of the customers but also its own employees and vendors or suppliers when they are on the premises.

Should a customer slip and fall anywhere within the premises of a restaurant, there is a possibility of the establishment or the owner being held liable, according to Santa Cruz Injury Attorney. This is not a generic rule though as the exact cause of slip and fall will be ascertained. A customer can always lose balance or suffer from some physiological problem that has nothing to do with the restaurant management or its premises. A customer accessing the washroom may trip or slip in haste, which would not always be the fault of the restaurant. There is no legal culpability or liability in any instance where the restaurant has played no role in the slip and fall and has not caused the accident or contributed to it in any way. In scenarios where the restaurant has failed to attend to the upkeep of the place or where any of the staff has contributed to a slip and fall accident, there is potential legal and financial liability.

A restaurant may have wet and slippery floors, either during cleaning or because someone has spilled some liquid. There should be proper notification warning the customers of such wet floors or possible slipperiness. In the absence of any warning, a customer can sue the restaurant if one slips and falls. A restaurant may have uneven tiles, broken staircase or unstable railings. Any such anomaly causing a slip and fall will potentially have the restaurant accountable. However, the type and extent of liability will depend almost entirely on the nature of suffering and damages that a customer has had to endure.

In most cases, restaurants will be potentially be liable for the medical bills of a customer who has suffered an injury at their premises. This applies to employees as well. Any employee injured at the workplace for no fault of theirs can demand adequate or fair compensation from the employer. If the employer refuses to provide such compensation, then the employee can always take legal action. Similarly, customers too can take legal action against a restaurant should it refuse to pay for the medical expenses.

Some cases will demand compensations greater than the immediate medical expenses, according to San Diego Personal Injury Lawyers. Customers may suffer from serious conditions, there can be life altering injuries and one may be incapable of working for a while or perhaps forever in rarest of rare cases. Restaurants can be sued to pay for damages in such instances, as deemed fit after a fair assessment of the financial equivalent of the suffering endured by the customer.

Redd, the popular seafood restaurant in Napa County recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the Restaurant.  One of the main issues in the legal dispute was the restaurants failure to warn of the risks of eating under-cooked food on the menu as is required by the Food and Drug Administration.

According to Sacramento Personal Injury Attorney, restaurants that serve under cooked or rare food, like many seafood restaurants regularly do, need to comply with the rules and regulations of the FDA, and, at a minimum, properly advise on the actual menu the dangers of eating such food.  Eating these foods can be especially dangerous to individuals that already have health issues, as was the case here.