"Health & Medical News"

Some Pennsylvania bars are demanding customers’ credit-card numbers and charging them if they vomit or otherwise damage property while drinking, Washington Square News reported Sept. 25.

Groups of six or more patrons at El Azteca restaurant and bar near Pennsylvania University, for example, are required to sign a contract that includes a credit-card number as insurance against damages by drunk patrons. If any member of the party vomits on the premises, for instance, all members of the group are hit with a $50 charge.

Some fellow bar owners, however, say that establishments can control alcohol-related behaviors in other ways. “If you’re selling J?¤germeister shots for a dollar apiece, there’s going to be vomit on your floors,”?  noted Patrick Meager of Professor Thom’s, a bar in New York’s East Village.

“Do [vomiting patrons] still happen? Yes,” said Martin Sheehan, a manager at New York’s Josie Woods bar. “If I find people misbehaving, I just say ‘this isn’t your bar.’ But would I fine them? No.”

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