So picture this: You’re standing at your wine pouring station at the Rotary Wine Tasting Event. You’re looking sharp. You’ve memorized the sheet of your red wines and you’re killing it dispensing information about varietals, breathing and debourbage (a white wine term but what the hell do you or they know?). It’s getting a little later in the event, you’ve opened more bottles than you care to count right now and up walks: 1) a buddy of yours, 2) a good looking guy or woman who you would like to impress, or 3) a fellow Rotarian. The conversation goes something like this.
Hey, how’s it going? Great, you Rotariaaans are greaaat! Thanks, we do like having a good time. Yeah, don’t you guys sometimes wear those funny hats and drive little cars in parades? (with that question I am hoping it is not a fellow Rotarian unless they are really new). No, I think you’re thinking of Shiners but you were close. What can I interest you in? I have some great red wines including a merlot, a pinot noir and two Zinfandels you can try? Would you like to know anything about any of them, I’m a bit of a wine tool. Oh, I don’t care, but fill me up, will ya, I’m here for quantity not quality or whatever you winos call it.
You think, clearly a little drunk, but hell so am I and so are most people here so she’s not going to care what I pour. I’ll pour from the fullest bottle I have so I don’t have to waste it all at the end of the night. She’s not going to taste it anyway. Why don’t you try this merlot, I think you’ll like it. Here, let me rinse your glass. Wait, there’s a sip left in there, don’t dump it yet, that’s waste. You know there are people in Africa who don’t get to drink wine very often. She gulps the last few drops in the glass. There now you can rinse it.
So you rinse the glass and pour a taste, a couple of ounces, and hand it back to her (please note you can substitute him for her here if you want). She looks at you in a disgusted way with her head tilted slightly to the left, she throws back her hair (if it is a guy I am not sure he would throw back his hair) and says: Dude, I asked you to fill it up. It takes a lot for me to really taste a wine. So hit me again please. At that point you’re conflicted. You really don’t want to stand there and take crap from this person and you certainly want to send her away happy, but on the other hand this is a wine tasting not an all you can drink buffet. The angel and devil go at it on your shoulders for exactly 3 seconds and you pour some more of the $10.00 merlot in her glass. She says, Dude you’re the best, spins, stumbles a little, a bit of the wine sloshes out of the glass onto the floor and off she goes. And you’re left wondering.
OK, let me put on my lawyer hat and introduce you to the Maine Liquor Liability Act. The Act is intended to prevent intoxication-related injuries, deaths and property damage. Let’s assume (not a big stretch) that, by definition, the person you just served is an “intoxicated individual,” and, by definition, she is “visibly intoxicated” (yes, there is a state definition for that). The Club is a “licensee” for the wine tasting event meaning we got a liquor license for the event. You are a “server” under the law.
Let’s spin the facts out a little. You may think that anyone that drunk can’t be driving. We all know better than that. We may all know better, but she didn’t think she was that bad and she hops behind the wheel. Hell, she only has to go a few miles and she is certainly of the opinion that she only had a few tastes. On the way home she drops her cell phone and as she is fishing for it between the console and her seat she goes through a stop sign, t-bones another car and the passenger of that car is seriously injured. She has the minimum amount of liability insurance and the passenger has serious injuries with huge medical bills and what will be a permanent impairment. Dong! Joe Bornstein is now involved and he is looking for other sources of money to cover the passenger’s damages and increase his contingency recovery. That’s when they find out she had just left the Rotary wine tasting event.
Under Maine’s Liquor Liability Act the passenger is an appropriate plaintiff (incidentally our drunk wine taster cannot sue us under that Act). Guess who the appropriate defendants are. The Biddeford-Saco Rotary Club and YOU personally! You can be held personally liable if you negligently serve liquor to a visibly intoxicated individual and the intoxication proximately causes the damages. In this case if the woman was not drunk she would not have dropped her phone, run the stop sign and crashed into the other car. You can also be found to be reckless because the woman was visibly intoxicated, and you gave her more wine than you should have done, and you had no idea whether the woman was driving or not.
So the Club gets sued and you get sued. That is absolutely horrible. I guess the good news is that the Rotary International insurance we purchase apparently includes liquor liability coverage, or so I am told. Second, the damages under the Act are capped at $350,000.00. Still a very large amount of money but not infinite dollars either. The bottom line is, however, that a person got seriously injured and you and the Club contributed to that. The Club’s reputation and yours are trashed by this incredibly unfortunate event. The other bottom line is such an accident might be avoided by not giving into the temptation to fill glasses during a tasting event and by making sure that people who have had too much to drink have a way to get home.
Our beer and wine events are really fun, and I don’t mean to be a “buzz kill” (unfortunate saying here), but I was asked to share the law with you. The good news is that we have insurance and we all know that if we pour properly everyone should be able to make it home safely. Let’s try to avoid being defendants while having a great time.
God give me strength as I attempt to be your intrepid reporter for this week’s installment of the Biddeford Saco Rotary Tack whereas I was not assigned the task but had it delivered through an intermediary. No it was not the Russians rather a Connecticut Yankee. However, I am still a little blinded by the light emanating from the back of Bill Kany’s newly shorn head; man are you getting grey- sorry dude- sorry folks I digress.
Lucy K called the meeting to order a little late and paid for it. Karen Chasse led us through the 4 way test. I did the prayer and asked for some divine intervention with my trans pass accounts. When did it become EZ Pass? Just another attempt by the man to keep me down.
Visitors were introduced by the folks that brought them. Where was Jackson Brown today to introduce folks; I heard he was rolling down 295 out of Portland, Maine.
Lucy introduced our Assistant Governor Susan Isley
Bill Kany introduced former club member and chamber exec Brenda Pollock
Conrad introduced Gary Ribado from Central Distributors
Don Pilon introduced Bill Doyle, Saco City Councilor
Don also introduced our speaker Peter Mills from the Maine Turnpike Authority
Lucie then handed out participation tokens, too cheap for trophies, to all of those nice Rotarians celebrating another milestone membership anniversary. Congrats to all. Check out the Tack to see who they are.
Announcements:
Jim Godbout will be having a Red Ribbon Committee meeting in few weeks. The week of April 24 through April 28th will be Red Ribbon Week. OOB, TA and Biddeford are all gearing up to work on a number of initiative and activities to continue a sustained message. Jim will keep us posted.
The Wednesday 01/18 meeting is being moved to Thursday morning, 01/19 Duffy’s, ( the old captain’s galley ). This meeting will a be joint meeting with Saco Bay Rotarians to officially kick off our annual auction.
Conrad discussed the wine tasting. A sign-up sheet was passed around for volunteers. Conrad and Gary Robado discussed the correct way to pour. We need to remember that this is a tasting and not a drink fest. WE need to pour like a tasting and not like we are pouring for ourselves. A 2 ounce pour is more than enough to try a wine. We will have over 20 wines. Our goal is to try and get people to try wines they think they don’t like even though they never drank them.
Susan Isley, Assistant District Governor invited Rotarians to share any thoughts or comments that she can bring back to the District for their visioning sessions. They would like to know what Rotarians are thinking.
Lucy then pulled the 50/50 ticket. The winner was Matt Early. He donated his $32 to the Red Ribbon Committee.
Lucy introduced our SAA Matt. Matt jump started the session with a Happy Dollars:
Matt, $2- his kid turned 10 and he liked the fact that some guys still wear suits. Maybe Matt could get some fashion advise from Kany- he seems to know how to tie a tie- ask our guest speaker.
Joe the dentist gave $5 even though he has been in the club for six months- he really likes what he sees.
Don Pilon $1--????
Nicole $1, her daughter turned 5- I still haven’t gotten a ride in your new car
Paul D gave $5 for not being at the wine tasting. He will be in Key West with Caroline. He also noted that he was the officiant at a wedding for someone associated to Ash Carter and shared retirement stories.
Susan Isley $1, glad to be at such a great club- I say DITTO
Then the fines came:
Lucie K for a late meeting start, something about shooting Bill Kany Bill Kany for reference to “Dances with Wolves” ( not sure what was meant )and getting caught on CCTV making a deposit at a local credit union late at night, Karen Chasse for taking up my companies valuable time tying up the two top executive officers strong arming us for 100 bucks- Jim G for either being “handsie” or some hand character on a kids show- either way it sounded kinda creepy- what gives Jim?, I got fined for referring to the EZ Pass Program as Trans Pass- Matt then ran out of gas without his missing SAA’s Sarah and Fausto and sat down.
Don Pilon took to the floor to introduce Peter Mills:
Peter’s program was a lot of fun that was insightful and full of the typical facts associated with giving a dog and pony show only this show was the Maine Turnpike Authority. The best part of his presentation was the amount of time he allotted for a real give and take conversation with a bunch of folks. You can read his vitae however, meeting the guy in person was a real treat. He is a typical old school Maine gentleman that is very, very smart.
We discussed issues impacting the Turnpike from growth to traffic accidents, environmental concerns, nimby’s, employment and even the pike traffic numbers serving as an economic indicator.
From Wikipedia
Peter Mills (born 1943) is an American politician from Maine. A Republican, Mills served in the Maine Senate, representing the 26th district. He ran for Governor of Maine in 2006 and 2010 and lost both times in the Republican primary.
After graduating second in his class from the University of Maine Law School in 1973, he spent 32 years working as a lawyer in Maine. For 23 years, he has owned Wright & Mills in Skowhegan. He is a founding member of the Somerset Economic Development Corporation and a founding member of FirstPark, a business park in central Maine.
Mills' family is also involved in public service. His father served in the Maine legislature, in the Navy, and in the federal justice department as U.S. Attorney. His sister, Janet Mills, was elected Maine Attorney General by the Legislature in December 2008. His sister Dora Mills was Maine's Public Health Director.
He has three adult daughters and three grandchildren. Two of his daughters are employed in the education field. One serves in the United States Army.
When not in the legislature, Mills practices law and manages woodlots in Cornville where he lives with his wife, Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills, and two dogs.
Naval Service
When he was a 17-year-old senior at Gorham High School, Mills was awarded a Navy scholarship to Harvard under the Holloway program.
On his third summer cruise in 1964, he was a midshipman aboard the destroyer USS Blue while serving on Yankee Station. The Blue and another destroyer were relieved by the Maddox and Turner Joy just before the famous Tonkin Gulf incident.
For five years of active duty, from July 1965 until July 1970, Mills had three tours of about 20 months each on the Dyess (DD 880), DESRON 2 staff aboard the Blandy (DD 943) and the McMorris (DE 1036).
On the Dyess he became the Communications Officer and qualified as OOD underway. The Dyess sailed from Newport around the world in order to serve on the Vietnam gunline, do plane guard duty on Yankee Station and patrol the Taiwan Straits. It fired 2787 rounds of 5′38 while on the gunline.
On Desron 2, Mills was the staff communications officer. From Norfolk, his squadron was sent through the Panama Canal to WestPac. For much of his time in the Western Pacific, his squadron staff commanded the gunline. While he was aboard the Blandy, the ship fired over 26,000 rounds of 5″54 which was a record for the gunline up to that time. They received return fire from the coast on occasion but without casualties.
For his last tour he was OPS boss and senior watch officer aboard the McMorris out of Pearl and was responsible for training junior officers in ship handling.
On one assignment, he was highly successful in collecting certain physical information about Soviet MRVs that was immediately released by the Nixon administration to support the ABM bill then pending in Congress. The bill still failed to pass.
Maine Legislature:
During 15 years in the Maine Legislature (most recently in the State Senate), he has served as a Republican lead on Tax, Labor, Judiciary, Appropriations, Education and Health & Human Services Committees. He was outspoken in advocating change in tax and school funding systems. He has worked with to pass reforms in health care and education.
In 1999 he led the Labor Committee to overhaul Maine's Unemployment Compensation system, to eliminate benefits, build reserves and reduce taxes. In 2005 he launched "Don't Mortgage ME," a petition drive to repeal a $447 million borrowing scheme. In 2009 the Legislature passed his bill to design a portable benefit system for new teachers and state employees. In 2008 the Legislature unanimously passed his Fund of Funds bill to attract venture capital for growing businesses. Governor John Baldacci vetoed the bill.
2006 Gubernatorial Campaign:
In 2005, Mills declared his candidacy for Governor in the 2006 election. In the Republican primary, he faced former U.S. Representative Dave Emery and State Senator Chandler Woodcock. Mills lost to Woodcock by 2,400 votes. Woodcock lost to incumbent Democrat John Baldacci in the November general election.
On July 22, 2009 Mills filed paperwork with the Maine Ethics Commission for entry into the 2010 Maine gubernatorial race. He was the fourth Republican to declare his candidacy, joined by Matt Jacobson, Les Otten, and Bruce Poliquin.Watervillemayor and businessperson Paul LePage was subsequently chosen to be the Republican candidate for Governor in 2010.
After the State Senate:
In 2011 Governor Paul LePage appointed Mills as the Executive Director of the Maine Turnpike Authority.
Julie Villemaire needs more volunteers!Please remember it is up to the TACK coordinator to ensure that someone is taking the minutes each week during your assigned month. If you aren’t able to take the minutes yourself, please reach out to fellow members for volunteers. Please forward the minutes to Julie Villemaire and Brian Dallaire so they can get them posted for the rest of the members.
Invocation: Joe Bassett
PROGRAM IDEA???? PLEASE CONTACT Bill Kany, PROGRAM CHAIR or a member of the Program Committee. Remember it is the responsibility of every member to help get Programs for our meetings.
Energy: Saved enough energy to light 43.0 lightbulbs—24 hours a day—for a year.
Emissions: Saved the emissions equivalent of driving a car 8,144 miles.
Volume: Diverted enough containers to fill 298.1 lobster traps.
Emissions: Saved the emissions equivalent of driving a car 8,144 miles.
Volume: Diverted enough containers to fill 298.1 lobster traps.
Fill up those green bags. If you need more bags and/or labels, just let Julie Villemaire know and she can hook you up…no charge!
Simple fill with returnables and drop off at any Hannaford.
Alternately, if you already have a CLYNK account of your own, you can designate you funds as a donation. Hit the Donate button and search for Rotary and you'll find our account.
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