Waitress Stops Customer From Driving Drunk, Gets Fired

Quebec – A (former) waitress says that her well-intentioned intervention, which prevented a clearly intoxicated customer from driving drunk, resulted in her firing.

Valérie Couturier says that her shift at Montreal’s Le Chêne Blanc was just wrapping up when she spotted a customer who was way over the drunken line hopping in his car. She approached the vehicle with a friend and tried to convince the man to call a cab.

They failed, so they made a mad grab for his keys and called the cops. They showed up and drove him home, and no charges were issued. Couturier essentially saved herself, the restaurant, the drunken man, the police, and a ton of potential victims a major headache.

Then she got fired.

Couturier told CBC News that she was dismissed a week after the incident because the restaurant felt that her actions “could ruin their reputation.”

They also felt that her actions left them vulnerable to litigation, which, if the drunken man had injured or killed anyone (or even himself) would have actually been true, not just in their imaginations.

Sounds a little one-sided in Couturier’s favor, but how else can we we parse this story when the restaurant won’t even speak to the press “because of the risk of litigation?” All they said was that other issues were involved in her dismissal.

As far as Couturier is concerned, she’s happy to be rid of her job because she doesn’t want to work in an environment like that. Still, losing your job ain’t easy.

“It’s not really great what happened to me,” she said. “I have to find another job, and I was just starting school after this, so this is not great.

She seemed to suggest that it’s a wider problem, as well.

“What I want to do is really to change things …. Maybe if some changes are made … people would not be afraid to call police.”

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