This past summer, the Vermont Legislature passed legislation to change alcohol education requirements for liquor licensees as codified in Title VII, Section 239(c) of the Vermont Statutes.
Effective July 1, 2000, all liquor licensees must ensure that every employee involved in the sale or service of alcoholic beverages completes a training program approved by the Vermont Department of Liquor Control before the employee begins serving or selling alcoholic beverages. Furthermore, each employee must repeat the training program at least once every 24 months.
Liquor licensees will be required to maintain written documentation signed by each employee trained. These requirements differ from previous years in which training was required for liquor licensees only.
A licensee may comply with the new requirement by conducting its own training program on its own premises using information and materials furnished by the Department of Liquor Control. Any licensee who fails to comply with the new requirements will be subject to license suspension of no less than one day.
In summary, licensees who wish to comply with the new requirements have the following options:
- First and second class licensees can attend a seminar given by an investigator from the Vermont Department of Liquor Control.
- Second class licensees may use a video to train their personnel in conjunction with use of the Alcohol Servers Awareness Program booklet. The video and the booklet are both available from the Vermont Department of Liquor Control.
- First class licensees may use the Alcohol Servers Awareness Program booklets for training. Unfortunately, a video is not currently available to first class licensees. The Vermont Department of Liquor Control is planning to produce a new video for this class of licensees.
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