More drivers arrested on suspicion of driving impaired reported having their last drink at Rumors Cabaret than any other bar or nightclub in Whatcom County, according to a Cascade Radio Group report on April 8.
But there is a problem with those statistics, Bellingham DUI attorney Jonathan Rands said, they are taken out of context and overemphasized.
The Washington State Liquor Control Board recently released a list where 38 people who were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in 2010 told police they had been drinking at Rumors.
Rumors was not aware of KGMI’s report and had received their own list of DUI incidents from the WSLCB.
“We had 28 DUI reports from the end of November 2009 to the beginning of December 2010,” said Marcus Schmick a manager at Rumors. “We haven’t had a ticket from the liquor control board in four to five years.”
In the report Rumors received from the WSLCB, there are two instances of the same DUI arrest being written twice, and there is no way for Rumors to know if the people from the list were ever actually convicted of a DUI, Schmick said.
Cascade Radio Group received the statistics for their report in an email, said Cascade Radio Group reporter Mike Curtiss, who wrote the April 8 report on Rumors.
“It’s freedom of speech,” Schmick said in response to KGMI’s report. “It’s all fair game if you want to report that way.”
When a person is arrested on suspicion of DUI, officers often times ask the individual where they are coming from, and note it in the police report and recorded on their dash cams, Rands said.
If they are not asked at the scene of the arrest, suspects are given the option to participate in a pre-written Washington State Patrol DUI interview before they take a blood alcohol content test, he said.
Question number 28 of the WSP DUI interview form asks, “Where were you drinking?”
In Washington, every alcohol serving business has been is given a code in correspondence to their liquor license, Rands said. If an individual decides to participate in the interview and if the officer is inclined to look up and enter an establishment’s liquor code, then the businesses liquor code is in a database maintained by the WSP, he said.
The WSLCB uses the database to compile a list of establishments where a DUI suspect received their last drink, Rands said.
This is just one tool that WSLCB enforcement officers use to enforce Washington’s liquor laws, according to an official disclaimer of the list released by the WSLCB.
“This information is hearsay and would not be admissible in court,” the disclaimer continued, some local law enforcement agencies report this information more consistently than others.
“A good chunk happen from 3:30 a.m to 5:30 a.m.,” Schmick said.
Rumors closes its doors at 2:00 a.m. and stops serving alcohol at 1:30 a.m.
“You can make statistics say whatever you want,” Rands said. “The problem is that (DUIs) are a very easy crime to sensationalize.”
Rumors has a list of every cab service located in Bellingham at the entrance to the club and often have two to three cabs in sitting in front of the club, Schmick said. Rumors also has many non-alcoholic drink options for designated drivers and a water station for those who have had too many, he said.
“A cab is 10 bucks,” Schmick said. “A DUI is ten thousand.”
Rands, who has been practicing law for over nine years and has dealt with countless DUI cases, adamantly said he is in no way in support of over-consumption or getting behind the wheel after drinking.
“It’s a serious issue,” Rands said. “But it never ceases to amaze me how skewed the statistics are.”
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