[Fishwhenican]

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Possibly. As I read the story though she was very patient with the man. She put up with his abusive behavior for quite some time, then repeatedly gave him the option to leave before she called the police. Could she have silently allowed him to carry on like a jerk? Well, it sounds like she did for some time. However, no bartender is obligated to allow a customer to be insulting to him/her or the other customers. The fact that this guy's relatives think he was totally in the wrong is quite telling. Even the customer, when he finally came to his senses, seems to understand that he was in the wrong.

Whenever there is conflict, there's always the possibility that the party in the "right" could have done more to avoid the conflict. That doesn't make them in the wrong, though if/when the conflict takes place. They clearly weren't egging him on, which is what your post would seem to imply. They just got tired of taking his crap and decided not to anymore.

Given that you feel it could have been handled better, how would you have responded differently? Keep in mind, you've been the only person waiting on an entire bar, you're tired, your feet hurt, and a drunk guy who has been insulting you repeatedly asks you to get him a napkin when he has some right in front of him.

It's possible that by sitting down with him and asking what's bothering him she might have disarmed the situation. I think that would be asking a lot of her given the circumstances.

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That still doesn't change their roll in escalating this. Sorry, but this all could've been handled better.

b

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Just some additional clarification.

If it were JUST the napkin thing and he would have just bitched at my wife(the bartender) and STFU nothing else would have happened. She was done with him at that point. But, he kept flapping his mouth and making a huge scene with his huge racist rant.

In fairness, I was the one who finally had enough of his racist rant and told him that it had nothing to do with race. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. But, in my mind he was just going to keep it up and I was tired of hearing racism being blamed for everything going on right then when it was simply a matter of his being an a-hole. He then focused the argument to me and my friend sitting next to me and no matter how many times we tried to explain to him that he was being an a-hole, rude and obnoxious he just kept running his mouth more and and getting more and more agitated. My wife, the bartender saw that this had the potential to get ugly and stepped in and told this guy the he needed to leave and if he didn't leave she was calling the cops to get him out. If he would have swung at me, my friend or my wife he would have been pummeled. Realistically she saved his butt from a severe beating by kicking him out. He had one friend there with him and the rest of the people in the bar were either friends or ours (including my friends son-in-law) or people who were likely going to stay out of it no matter what. She gave him several warning to get out and after at least 5 minutes of telling him he needed to leave she finally called the cops. He was not going to go and he wasn't going to stop his rant until he either got into a fight or the cops showed up. The only reason he even left them was because his buddy convinced him to get out of there and that even took some doing on his part.

LouBlue, I like your post, thank you, but realistically sitting down with this guy and having a therapy session at this point was not an option. That was pretty much what I was trying to do when I first told him it was nothing to do with race and that sure didn't work.