19 YEAR OLD DRIVER THAT PLOWED THROUGH FRISCO STARBUCKS ARRESTED FOR BEING INTOXICATED | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog

Calvin McGowan, (19), of McKinney, faces driving while intoxicated and hit-and-run charges after plowing a truck through a Starbucks located in the 3500 block of Preston Road, Frisco, Texas. In addition, Richard Evans, (38), a passenger in the truck Calvin McGowan is accused of driving, also faces a public intoxication charge. A Frisco, The Dodge truck had plowed through the front of the coffee shop and ended up almost 20 feet inside the store.

After driving through the Starbuck’s restaurant, the driver failed to stop at the scene and was observed by a police officer on Friday zooming by, dragging a chair and a table and showering sparks all over the road. Fortunately, no one was on the patio or inside the store at the time of the incident and therefore no patrons or employees were physically injured.

McGowan attempted to claim that the officers used excessive force on him. However, Sgt Adam Henderson of the Frisco Police had a different version of the events. Sgt. Henderson reported that the video from the patrol unit shows McGowan lifting his head and hitting it on the ground claiming the officers hit his head, but that the video shows the officer was more than four feet away from McGowan at the time.

In addition to the charges against McGowan and Evans, The Frisco police are also investigating the possibility that McGowan, a minor, was served alcohol at a nearby restaurant. That case will be handled by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). It is a crime for a restaurant to serve a minor alcohol, and in Texas, anyone under the age of 21 is considered a “minor” for purposes of determining whether the person is of legal drinking age. Both the restaurant and the server who serve alcoholic beverages to a minor can be held both criminally and civilly responsible for the incident.

Because McGowan was not of legal drinking age, he can be charged with driving under the influence if he has any detectable amount of alcohol in his blood system because he should have never been served any alcohol at the restaurant. §106.041 of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code.

Further, the restaurant and the server also have a legal responsibility to not serve its patrons, even adults, to the point that they become obviously intoxicated because at that point people are considered to have lost control of their physical and mental faculties and become a danger to themselves and to others. §2.02 of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code and§49.02 of the Texas Penal Code. The most pressing concern at this point for any restaurant is that an intoxicated patron will get behind the wheel of an automobile and drive while intoxicated and either kill or seriously injure themselves or someone else or cause damage to the property of others. This concern needs to be paramount in the mind of the restaurant as well as all of the servers, bartenders and managers. After all, Texas has led the nation over the past few years not only in the number of alcohol related wrecks, but also in the number of deaths and injuries in alcohol-related accidents.

When the TABC investigates a case such as this, it has the power to present evidence at a hearing to determine whether the restaurant should lose its liquor license. As part of those investigations and hearings, the TABC is not limited to focusing on whether a server provided or sold alcohol to a minor, it can also look into whether Mr. Evans was over-served alcohol at the restaurant. In addition, TABC can investigate whether Mr. Evans purchased alcohol for a minor as only certain family members or guardians can purchase or furnish alcohol to a minor. §106.06 of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code.

We hope that you and your friends and family are never forced to deal with the senseless tragedy that a drunk driver can bring. Before you find yourself in that situation, we encourage everyone to get involved in the fight against drunk driving. We encourage people to support Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and its efforts to stop and to discourage drunk driving. If you have never been involved with MADD, one easy way to get familiar with MADD is to consider participating in the WALK LIKE MADD event being held in Dallas and in Austin on April 24, 2010 or visit their website for other ways to get involved with MADD. We will be at the event, and hope to see you there.

In addition to encouraging people to get involved with organizations such as MADD, we are also attempting to gather a grass roots support for our efforts to get new laws written to further reduce the problem of drunk driving in Texas. We are trying to get support for new laws that will make it easier for bars, restaurants and servers who are trying to be responsible and trying to follow the law to identify people who should not be served alcoholic beverages. Specifically, we want to target people who have been convicted of alcohol or drug related crimes and who are on probation for those offenses because judges in those cases typically issue an order which makes it illegal for those people to purchase or to consume alcoholic beverages while they are on probation. By forcing people who have been convicted of drug or alcohol related offenses to get a new driver’s license or a new identification card that clearly displays information which makes it obvious that it is illegal for that person to purchase or to consume alcoholic beverages, hopefully we can reduce the number of repeat offenders and drunk driving wrecks.

Please visit our FACEBOOK page (search for Montes Herald Law Group) and view our DISCUSSION on DRUNK DRIVING PROPOSAL FOR NEW LEGISLATION for more information on our proposal. If you support this proposal, we need your help. We are trying to get a meeting with legislators next year and to show them that there is already support for this proposal. If you want to show your support for this proposal, the only way we currently have to document that support is for you to leave a comment (even something as short as, “I support this proposal.”) or even a more personal story of why you feel this proposal would help or how you believe it could have helped you.

We understand that there will always be some bars, some restaurants and servers that will openly disregard the law, and that will continue engage in dangerous, illegal behavior such as serving alcoholic beverages to minors knowing the person is underage or by failing to card such minors, or by serving people even far beyond the point that the patron is obviously intoxicated either because they do not care about the law or because they put profits above their legal obligations. However, we believe that there are plenty of restaurants, bars and servers that would comply with this law and make it more difficult for those who have already shown themselves to have a problem with alcohol and drugs to purchase alcohol and to drive drunk.

Rachel E. Montes

Montes Law Group, P.C.

1121 Kinwest Parkway, Suite 100

Irving, Texas 75063

(214) 522-9401 Telephone