Sheriff’s Office Debuts “Stop and Think” Winery Campaign

If you’ve ever spent time working in a wine-tasting establishment, you’re likely to have met some “problem customers.”

They’re the ones who spill out of their limousines already drunk and stagger into your tasting room as if it’s a Wild West saloon and you’re the bartender.

Demanding not to sample but to swill, their loud voices and slurred diction draw glances from other customers and, sometimes, a polite request from staff to vacate the premises.

“We’ve actually had customers thanking us for asking other tables to leave,” said Claudia Colantuoni, who works in the tasting room at Mumm Napa in Rutherford.

But what if you have real problem customers and you can’t get them to go away?

Or maybe there’s no limo, and it's clear that nobody in the party is sober enough to drive away from your establishment without risking a crash that could be laid at your door?

“Don’t be afraid to call us,” ’s Deputy Craig Nickles told Colantuoni and about three dozen of her fellow tasting-room workers at Mumm Munday morning.      

Nickles and Deputy Jon Thompson said the sheriff’s office makes as discreet an appearance as possible when called to a tasting room during business hours.

“We’re not going to come in with a SWAT team and cut somebody out of the herd,” Nickles continued, as the group laughed at his imagery. “We don’t want to screw up your business.”

But when the law does come, the troublemaker is going to jail.

“It’s illegal to be drunk in public in the state of California,” and that includes in tasting rooms or anyplace else that’s open to public use, Nickles said.

And since the county has no detox center for drunks, the only place they can go is the county jail downtown, where they remain until they’re sober enough to leave. That’s a heavy penalty for a good time gone bad.

The deputies’ visit to Mumm, on the first day of harvest, was the debut of a new social-responsibility campaign aimed at keeping inebriated winery patrons off the roads and out of jail.

Thompson and Nickles say that Napa County’s tasting-room staffers—all of whom, by law, are trained in responsible beverage service before they start pouring wine for the public—now have an alternative, less drastic option when faced with obstreperous customers who’ve had too much.

Called “Stop and Think,” the new campaign aims to check the momentum of winery customers who seem headed for trouble.

Thompson, Nickles and Deputy Craig Wong distributed handfuls of black rubber bracelets with yellow lettering that read

STOP AND THINK - NAPA COUNTY SHERIFF.

They also handed out stacks of black, beer-mat-style coasters emblazoned on both sides with the badge of the Napa County Sheriff’s Office and the STOP AND THINK slogan.

When tasting-room workers are faced with someone who appears to be what the trade calls “over-served,” they can put a coaster on the countertop and offer to call a cab, Thompson said.

“It gives them a look at a badge,” he explained.

The badge, Thompson continued, is intended to make the unruly patron reflect that “'maybe my actions will result in a new pair of bracelets and a warm place to sleep,'” meaning handcuffs and the jail.

Often, Thompson added, one member in a party will be level-headed enough to steer the problem customer back to the limo or agree to a cab ride home for the group.

"We'd rather see somebody go home" than make an arrest, Nickles told the Mumm workers.

"We don’t want to take people to jail."

Every county-owned vehicle now sports a “STOP AND THINK” bumper sticker, Thompson said.

Though the sheriff’s office gives precedence to the inside city limits, Thompson said he’d "love to see" downtown tasting rooms adopt the Stop and Think program as well.