‘Fess up time: How have you skirted the law?

In 2000 I was living in Savannah and working at one of the most extraordinary restaurants to grace the planet. Seriously, you should have come in on a Saturday for the weekly special. It was duck two ways. A leg and thigh confit was laid aside a breast crusted with Asiago, crumbled Stone Wheat crackers, and five spice, joined it, both over Hoppin’ John and collards. Magnificent.

I was thinking about the illegal things we did. For those that have never worked in a restaurant, the staff can be a hive of criminality. I’m comfortable in saying that in the employees, the finer the dining the more scoff in the scofflaw. We were never malicious in our disregard so much as dismissive. If it didn’t make sense to us to do or not do what the law required we were fairly likely not to do what the law required.

Some of the things we did I’m proud of. What about you? Is there a time when you, statute of limitations considered because we like you around and reading, did something that was in blatant disregard for the law but you would do again?

We need to entertain ourselves somehow with the lack of live competition Don’t forget about the MAC, ACC, and CUSA. YouTube has so many games and since you didn’t watch them the first time and they can almost all be relied on to go 7-5 every year there is a backlog of “live” games to be had. Pour a little on the ground for the Big East. But if that doesn’t capture you…

I’ll go first. My mildly little bit of law breaking that I’m willing to openly brag about took place at the aforementioned Savannah Restaurant.

I was in my late twenties and looking over the evening reservations with Lisa, a woman in her forties that could deadpan you to death. It was late afternoon so the place was closed and we were in jeans and t-shirts doing all the non formal stuff. A man came in to confirm his reservation. All was in order, a table for two. Then he stunned us.

He asked, actually asked without any sign of embarrassment, to mess with his table’s drinks. Both he and she would be having gin and tonics. His date was to get doubles and he was to get watered down cocktails.

Lisa and I got along well because when presented with absurdity we both wanted to see where things ended. So neither of us said “We aren’t going to help you commit date rape.” Instead we told him “Sure,” and right after he left, she turned to me and said “Did that [expletive deleted] just ask us to help him rape some girl?”

She cocked her head and then said “We are going to [expletive deleted] him up.”

We did.

There are laws against over serving. I used to teach classes to wait- and bar- staff about such things. Intoxicating someone is dangerous. We weren’t really thinking about that, and by “we,” the whole front of house staff had been drafted in support.

His first was a double and his date’s was practically nothing. Ditto his second.

After that he came up to the bar to kibitz with me about the situation. I apologized about the error and scaled him back to a regularly portioned drink; his date was still getting weak mixes. His next was brutal. So was the next. We got him so drunk.

It ended with me telling him that we would be calling the police if he insisted on driving. We called a cab. Lisa asked his date if she would like a separate cab. She looked at her wasted date. “Yes, please.”

In retrospect the smart thing to do would have been to tell the date about the Jerk’s instructions, but we leapt to attack mode. That was dumb. We broke dram shop liability laws. We intoxicated an unwilling ass. But he had it coming.

Have any of you broken laws proudly?

We have no sports, Give me your stories. The comments are now open for your misdeeds.