Bartender faces charges over drinking death
By Elise Stolte and Jennifer Yang
The Edmonton Journal
September 13, 2008

CALMAR - A bartender has been charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death for the alcohol poisoning of a 22-year-old Calmar woman.

The owner of Skip's Bar and the company have also been charged with criminal negligence causing death, RCMP said Friday.

Tammy Kobylka died last October after a night of allegedly drinking shots at the Calmar bar with friends. She fell asleep on her couch and friends called paramedics when they were unable to revive her the following afternoon.

Derek Allen Tithecott, a 33-year-old man from Calmar, was allegedly the bartender that night. He and owner Brian Cameron Bromley, 61, as well as the company, Calmar-based S.B.H. Enterprises, are scheduled to appear in court Sept. 18.

Last March, RCMP laid charges against the bar under the Alberta Liquor and Gaming Act but those were withdrawn on the advice of Crown prosecutors two months later.
That allowed investigators to come back with the more serious Criminal Code charges, Leduc RCMP Const. Jodi Heidinger said.

Skip's Bar is a small local hangout on main street with the yellowed sign 'No tabs' over the bar. It has pool tables and online-betting stations.

"All the sudden we're hit with this. I'm not making any comment," said the woman behind the bar Friday.

Barbara Biggar, a waitress at a neighbouring restaurant, said the bar gets full after 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, with a mostly older crowd drawn by karaoke.

"Derek's a good guy, that's all I can say," she added. "I thought this was all over and done with. All bars over-serve, it's just this time something terrible happened." Kobylka lived in the Calmar trailer park, a quiet community with about 50 mostly well-kept houses.

Her neighbour, 29-year-old Krista Rice, said Kobylka was known to party but didn't cause any trouble. Rice went to school with Kobylka's older brother and has been to Skip's Bar.

"I don't think Derek would have intended for someone to be hurt but he serves drinks, that's what he does," she added. "He's been serving there for a long time." Kobylka's grandfather, John Konkin, told Global News the family is happy with the charges but wishes the court case was over. They're tired of reliving her death.

In order to convict the bartender on manslaughter charges, prosecutors will have to show he demonstrated "gross" and "heightened negligence," said Steven Penney, a University of Alberta law professor.

Robert Solomon, law professor at the University of Western Ontario and legal policy director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said it "has to be much more than garden-variety carelessness - some kind of outrageous, blatant, high-handed thing." The maximum penalty for manslaughter is life in prison but a conviction could also bring a suspended sentence.

Erick Rosende, director of Ultimate Bartending School on Whyte Avenue, said served drinks for 18 years without hearing of someone being criminally charged for over-serving a customer. But he said he always warns his students that "eventually someone's going to get charged.

"There are responsible bartenders that understand their job description, but then there are bartenders who just think the bar is a playground." Some small-town bartenders tend to be more relaxed with the rules, Rosende said, not mentioning any specific bar.

But he said it can be challenging for any bartender to discern how drunk someone is. Some people laugh, others cry while some fall down or fall asleep.

Cutting a customer off is "difficult, especially with people you know very well," he said Ultimate Bartending School offers a three-week basic course, which includes four hours of training on legal responsibilities. Rosende said there is no mandatory training for bartenders but this will change in January 2010, when anyone serving or selling alcohol will be required to undergo the Alberta Server Intervention Program.

The program was introduced in 2004 under the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission and is being phased in. As of January 2007, every premises was required to have at least one person per shift and per room trained under the new program.

estolte@thejournal.canwest.com, jyang@thejournal.canwest.com