Drinking Death at Ruben's Causes a Stir Within Community

In case you haven't heard, on May 31st, at Ruben's Catfish House in Columbus, MS, a 46 year old man, who was an regular patron of the bar, died after being involved in a drinking contest w/ an off-duty employee.

The off-duty employee and the bartender who was on duty during the incident, have been arrested and charged for selling/furnishing alcoholic beverages to an intoxicated person. The maximum penalty for each, if convicted, would be a fine of $500 and six months in jail.

The hot topic around town is not what should be done to ensure something like this never happens again, but how can we punish these two men, one who participated in the game and the other who allowed it to go on under his watch.

Now, I am fairly certain there is no argument over there current charges, as we can all pretty much agree that allowing a drinking contest of this nature (taking straight shots of Crown Royal until one person quit) easily falls under the charges of "selling/furnishing alcoholic beverages to an intoxicated person".

The real arguments are coming from people who believe these two should have manslaughter added to their lists of charges. This is where I sincerely disagree.

As I mentioned earlier, the patron who died was 46 years old. Old enough to know better. Old enough to know consequences of binge drinking. He may have been one of those drinkers that could drink a lot and had drank for so long he seriously thought he could beat the odds.

Why do people always look for someone to blame in scenarios similar as this? Why are the cigarette companies sued when people die from using their products for years and years knowing the consequences? Why are people saying these two young men deserve to be charged with manslaughter when they were not forcing this man to drink?

Don't get me wrong. I do think there are some other actions that should be taken with them, first of which is that they should NEVER be allowed to serve alcohol or work at a place that serves alcohol ever again. I don't think that needs explaining. I also believe these men should be forced to go through a series of alcohol related education courses, because they have obviously shown that they were never taught the rights and wrongs and the consequences of their actions when alcohol is involved, one consequence being that the owner of Ruben's will in all likelihood lose his business and possibly every penny earned and more because of this poor, immature lack of judgment, and for that, I would expect a possible lawsuit against the two men for ruining this man's name and livelihood.

As for the people looking to place blame in the death of this patron, in my opinion, the only person truly responsible for this alcohol related death is the man who died. This is a very taboo thing to say and I mean it as no disrespect to the deceased, but he is the one to blame. He was a grown man. He was never, in any way, forced to consume a single bit of alcohol that went down his throat and he agreed to the moronic contest.

We, as a society, need to learn to stop looking for ways to place blame on others in accidental deaths like this and start looking for ways to ensure this does not happen again, not just within the next year, but for generations to come.