New regulation for state bars, restaurants and any food service businesses that serve alcohol in their establishments.
Assembly Bills 1221, or the Responsible Beverage Service Training Act, will require bartenders, waitstaff and the managers at establishments licensed to serve alcohol to take a three-to-four-hour training course on how alcohol consumption affect the body and possible consequences of “over-serving” clients on their premises. The training also includes “basic law regulating alcohol and intervention techniques for dealing with inebriated customers. Workers must then pass a tow-hours open book exam,” according to the information provided by an article of Suhauna Hussain written in the Business Section of Los Angeles Times.
The Law went into effect on July 1st and by August 31st, all the staff on any establishment that serves alcohol, or any other alcoholic beverage must be properly certified by the end of August. Any new personnel hired after August 31st, must take the certification course in the 60 days period after being hired.
According to the article in the LA Times, The Alcoholic Beverage Control Department had said it “plans to focus on outreach rather than immediately penalizing businesses that fail to comply”. The idea behind this first approach is focus on educating the personal that deals directly with the consumption of alcohol by customers rather than creating a problem for businesses. Nevertheless, the Law allows for penalties and fees for those who fail to comply.
RBS Training and Certification is a Three-Step process:
1. Register with ABC as a Server on the RBS Portal
2. Take RBS training from an approved RBS Training Provider
3. Return to the RBS Portal to take ABC’s alcohol server certification exam
Workers must first register with the Alcohol Beverage Control Department and pay $3 fee to receive a nine-digit ID that will allow them to take the training and the exam. After they have completed the training, workers have a window of 30 days to take de exam. They can not take it more than 3 times for training session, and they will have to score 70% and above to pass the exam.
California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Department has certified 45 third-party training providers which offer the courses and the necessary information to obtain the certification.
For more information about the Mandatory RBS (Responsible Beverage Service) training, you can log into the California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Department website.
Information about certify training providers can be found at the link below:
https://abcbiz.abc.ca.gov/ (RBS PORTAL)
Maura Smith
Food Industry Program Coordinator
213-468-8305
