The small town alcoholic and the liquor store attendant
This is a post about ethics. There is a small knit community. Everyone knows everyone else's business.
There is only one liquor store. And a known alcoholic comes in to buy alcohol. Now the shop clerk knows the family very well and knows from first hand experience that a). The alcoholic is trying to quit the addiction and b). That the family wishes they would quit also.
Perhaps, in fact the daughter/son or spouse is a close friend and explains how the person with the addiction really wants to quit, is trying and says it would be in the whole families best interest if they did.
You care about that family very much, as a close neighbour and friend. The alcoholic asks for a bottle of vodka.
What do you do?
Should you maintain a totally impartial role simply selling goods to those that ask for them. Do you deny the sale? As is also your right under any reason, knowing that as the only supplier in the region this will surely prevent them from drinking and encourage their abstainance?
How do we navigate the business model verses personal moral desire to help both the suffering and their family.
You could argue that its not your responsibility and to deny the sale is interfering with their autonomy. But then again you also have a personal sense of doing what's in their best interests as a friend.
There is only one liquor store. And a known alcoholic comes in to buy alcohol. Now the shop clerk knows the family very well and knows from first hand experience that a). The alcoholic is trying to quit the addiction and b). That the family wishes they would quit also.
Perhaps, in fact the daughter/son or spouse is a close friend and explains how the person with the addiction really wants to quit, is trying and says it would be in the whole families best interest if they did.
You care about that family very much, as a close neighbour and friend. The alcoholic asks for a bottle of vodka.
What do you do?
Should you maintain a totally impartial role simply selling goods to those that ask for them. Do you deny the sale? As is also your right under any reason, knowing that as the only supplier in the region this will surely prevent them from drinking and encourage their abstainance?
How do we navigate the business model verses personal moral desire to help both the suffering and their family.
You could argue that its not your responsibility and to deny the sale is interfering with their autonomy. But then again you also have a personal sense of doing what's in their best interests as a friend.
Comments (49)
Furthermore of being an ethical issue, I think it is forbidden by law to sell booze to alcoholic if you are aware that he or she is in rehab or needs help. This ethical problem reminds me about the alcohol selling (beers, in most of the cases) to teenagers. Is the owner of the liquor store responsible for selling alcohol to those persons? I think yes. Alcohol is a drug, and everyone who is in this business should be the most responsible in the use and sale of this product.
But if such a law doesn't exist (I'm not sure what countries have such a law or don't, perhaps all of them do), but suppose they don't and the onus is on you to decide individually. What do you think is the correct course of action?
Not letting him to buy alcohol, even though I would lose money or even receive insults from him. Yet, your ethical dilemma makes me wonder about one situation: What is the role of the state in this topic? I am referring to taxation on alcoholic drinks. What if the owner of the liquor store is just doing his job and the state should be responsible for all of this?
Aid comes at all levels. Which is most potent is difficult to say. The government has the ability to change laws and policies of commerce which affects everyone. But the clerk has the ability to have more impact on an interpersonal and thus emotional level because the government is impersonal and generic. It doesn't know individual people like the clerk does.
So it's a group effort. It is the responsibility of the government to help those in need on a macroscopic level and it is the responsibility of individuals to uphold morality on a microscopic level however they can as someone with good intentions/good will.
The combination of the two, when working together, is a powerful force to be reckoned with. Ideally everyone would reflect the general concensus (democratic process of legislation) but it is the very reason that we don't that we have need for such an institution as government to police our social deviance. And emplore ethics for those that have a loose sense of it personally.
If everyone was an outstanding citizen government would not be neccesary as we would all collectively and unanimously do the most prudent thing.
I hope this answers your question. Healthy government = the collective imagination of what is ideal while the individual is biased and doesn't reflect the collective conscience. Not ideal. We are all flawed in the end but we hope that by sharing opinions we can establish something beyond ourselves that mitigates out individual prejudice.
It was a very good answer, indeed. Thank you and I appreciate the effort you took to elaborate on your arguments. I always tend to take part in your OPs because they tend to be so interesting.
The law in Georgia, where I live, as it relates to alcohol:
A bar can be held liable for the injuries to a third person if it knowingly serves an intoxicated person. So, if a bar owner knowingly serves someone too much alcohol and that person injures another, that injured person can sue the bar owner. Note that if the drunk person is injured he cannot sue the bar owner, but only the innocent third party can sue the bar owner. You can't sue another for the consequences of your drunkeness. This is referred to as the Dram Shop Act.
Voluntary intoxication is never a defense, which means that you cannot blame the alcohol for your behavior or use it to mitigate your punishment as long as you voluntarily were drunk. If someone drugged you, you can use that as excuse for your conduct.
If you provide illegal drugs to someone and they overdose, you can be held criminally liable for their death (i.e. for homicide). The reason for this is that their death resulted from your commission of a felony, and that makes the consequence of your felony an additional crime.
Providing alcohol to a minor is obviously illegal because that is specifically illegal.
As to the moral question of whether you are in the right to sell alcohol to a known alcoholic, I don't know that ethics demands paternalism, and I would not hold it against the purveyor of drink for supplying drink., but I place the responsibility to control one's drinking entirely upon the person drinking. I fully understand that addiction impacts a person's decisions, but with 100 points of responsibility to dole out for the alcoholic's behavior, I give him the full 100 and expect him to take the full 100. I don't think anyone is done any good by spreading the blame for an alcoholic's alcoholism beyond the alcoholic. I also doubt there are any sobriety programs that suggest the addict find others to blame and not take full personal responsibility for his decisions.
It is illegal to sell alcohol to minors here too.
On the other hand, related to alcoholics.It is complex to explain, but I will give it a try. Our law (both the civil and criminal codes) considers alcoholics as "handicapped" persons. Years ago, they had their own regulation among gamblers, but their actions and rights are regulated generally now. One of the key aspects is what happens to the people who makes agreements or treats with alcoholics.
The articles 1265 and 1302 of the Spanish Civil Code declare null all the acts committed by handicapped or "non-capable" persons without judge authorization or legal support, and then, they put responsibility on all of them who treated with the alcoholic when they actually knew about such a problem or addiction.
We can agree with the point that the alcoholic holds all the responsibility for his acts. Yet, the people who are around him must protect him (supposedly). So, I also understand to share some responsibility in those specific cases, such as the one mentioned in this OP. An owner of a liquor store who sells booze to an alcoholic when he is aware about that person's condition.
Of course you are your brother's keeper, but if you are also a shopkeeper, you need yourself the support of the community. Easy enough to tell the miserable addict to go away, and impossible to really be responsible for his plight. How can you help me, addicted as you are to your respectability?
In my town? No, you won't. The guy in the hardware store knows about you; the girl at the drugstore won't sell you cough syrup with alcohol in it; if you try to buy anything, anywhere in town that's harmful, the clerk will call your AA sponsor.
Quoting unenlightened
That won't wash, or shame anyone who really cares about you.
And half-way back again.
It's called professional judgment. (Given the law in place, or the lack thereof), you employ your professional judgment to the best of your knowledge to decide whether or not you sell him alcohol. And the obvious answer is, of course, you don't.
Yes, the alcoholic will find a solution to buy the drinks sooner or later.
If later - and every minute he's delayed - his chances of recovery improve. If he's trying to resist the temptation, he needs all the help he can get. Sometimes, just removing the temptation a little way out of reach is a boost to the addict's willpower. As a recovering smoker, I know this for a fact.
Quoting Vera Mont
I understand and I have empathy for what you have expressed. That's why I said that we have to share a bit of responsibility and kindness with all of them who needs us.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience. Did you felt disappointed or upset with society when we/they didn't help you out?
Not at all. Various kinds of help were always available, but I didn't ask until I seriously decided to quit. The people close to me were very co-operative.
But for some culturally embedded reason, alcoholics have a much harder time. I guess it's because most of them behave badly under the influence, everyone is angry with them. And I suspect the rest of us resent them for making us feel bad about drinking, sometimes to excess. I know I used to resent born-again nonsmokers. (I'm still a smoker; I'm just taking time out, as long as my life is worth living smoke free.)
Glad to read personal testimonies as yours.
Quoting Vera Mont
I know what you mean. Some of my relativeswere alcoholic and they even dead because of this. I remember them as angry and liars, stealing money from our pockets to buy booze. Whenever I saw those actions I felt pretty sad and ashamed
Applying an increased tax on alcohol might have an effect. It is the most a state can do. It cannot forbid the selling of alcohol. Remember what effects its prohibition had with the alchohol ban in US in the 1920s. Beside fostering the rise of organized crime and the American Mafia. Also, people always find ways to sell prohibited things. A strong example in our times is the selling of street drugs. It just prospers. (Maybe also with the help of the governments, the police, etc.)
The state could force applying "warning" labels on alcohol bottles, as it did --and does?-- with cigarettes. I don't know what effect that had in the selling of cigarettes, but from what I know from my Marketing studies, the first time it was used in US, there had been findings about some cigatrette companies whose sales were increased!
This issue is so complex indeed. I don't understand the behavior and attitude of people. The state warns against the consumption of these "drugs," and randomly, people want to consume even more. This is one of the main issues with drug addiction. The yonkers and stoners wanted to prove drugs once because it seemed interesting to him that those were forbidden by law.
What it pisses me off the most is how the state is making revenue with them thanks to the taxes. Our governors and public servants just accepted that consumers tend to buy a big amount of cigarettes and booze, so it is an "opportunity" to make them profitable. I personally see those acts dishonest as hell...
It's been called sin tax, and I don't think there an attempt at deception. The increased price may prevent some young people from starting the vice, but it does also encourage illegal trade that circumvents the tax. This kind of legislation is relatively easy to pass in elected bodies, because no party wants to be seen as pro-addiction, and a segment of the voters always wants to see the sinners punished.
I dont know, for me, they are acting with hypocrisy. If we accept that there always be consumption we can led this supplies to be managed by private companies.
They don't. The public has to manage damage to the citizenry and infrastructure from harmful behaviours - the health and law-enforcement and property defacement and traffic accidents. It's not unfair to collect a substantial part of the compensation for those funds from the people who cause the damage and need rehabilitation. If part of the compensation comes from people who drink responsibly, as the LCBO posters exhort us to, we accept that burden as insurance payments, in case we fall off a wagon, just as good drivers also help to offset the expenses for damage done by bad ones. It's a social contract.
OTOH - I'm really against governments running the gambling racket.
Should you sell -- junk food to an obese person?
-------------------- cigarettes to someone with COPD?
-------------------- candy to a diabetic?
In real life, people make a lot of unhealthy choices while shopping. Clerks are not in a position to police the habits and addictions of the community or individuals.
The most solid theory that I know of is that the alcoholic has to decide to avail himself/herself of therapy or quit without help. A liquor store clerk's decision to refuse a sale is not likely to result in much of anything. The alcoholic an always find someone else to buy the liquor for him/her. At the state law level, bartenders can refuse alcohol sales to people who, in their judgement, are visibly drunk and impaired. That's not a necessarily obvious condition. "How drunk is drunk?" When does actionable impairment begin?
If the clerk is concerned, he or she could attempt to help the alcoholic obtain help (AA, detox, in- or out-patient treatment. Be warned, however, that it can require moving heaven and earth to get an addict to quit--especially If they don't want to. Even involuntary treatment is no guarantee of success.
The OP scenario is a small town, wherein everyone knows that this person is trying to dry out. The store clerk is not required to diagnose or pass judgment on a stranger.
Quoting Benj96
Presumably, the alcoholic has gone to AA, his pastor, his GP and whatever services are available. His diabetic cousin is regularly refused candy at the grocery store next door, because the cashier thinks he's cute and doesn't want him to die.
The question is whether the store clerk should put his job/employer's earnings above the welfare of the alcoholic, even if the alcoholic - in this moment of weakness - doesn't?
I don't think we can make a rule. I think it depends on the boss/owner and how they might react. It depends on the specifics of the relation with the family. And in some ways it depends on the economic situation of the clerk and if there are dependents. If we as a society expect clerks to do such things, then that society should increase the protections clerks have.
I can't see a real problem with challenging the person. I think it gets tricky to expect the clerk to deny the sale.
I'm glad I don't live in your town,
Quoting Vera Mont
I grew up in a very small town; the town owns the hard liquor store (but not the beer joints). Small towns are not necessarily the kinds of places where one can rely on the kindness of strangers--or people you know very well, for that matter. Leaving that little berg was a very happy day.
But the ethical problem isn't solved or simplified by living in a small town--it's just more personal.
And that's what makes it an ethical problem.
This kind of reaction is similar to that of the children when you forbid something to them. Some ot them start revolting and want it more than before. Also, have you noticed how youngsters react to bulling? Some of them are teasing their bullies and thus they prokoke the bullying themselves. This also happens between young brothers and sisters who are about the same age. The weaker provoke the stronger ones and they insist after taking a bashing. This was happening for a lot of years with my niece and nephew when they were young.
All this I guess reflects the protest and revolt of the weak against power. It's the only thing they can do since they cannot fight back. But of course, it's also reflects the irrationality of the people. It's the human condition ...
Quoting javi2541997
I believe this is a necessary byproduct rather than an action aimes at profitability.
In Greece, they have done that in the past for both the alcohol and the cigarettes. But, although I was a heavy smoker and I also used to drink back then, I didn't protest. On the contrary, I supported it and tried to smoke and drink less. (Mainly from lack of cash flow, of cource! :smile:)
We all have had that period of time where we used to consume a lot of tobacco or drinks. My personal case was a big addition to alcohol when I was only 19/20 years old. I no longer consume big quantities anymore. To be honest, I think that, beyond being my fault (because no one pushed me to drink), I see a bit of bad ethics from the public administration or "bureaus" or "lobbies" of alcohol/tobacco. They are aware that those products can provoke addiction in the youngest and even affect their income because they waste money by just smoking and drinking, but they are sold anyway... It is a profitable business, and that's a fact.
Only the courts of one state, Uruguay, condemned Marlboro for being dangerous to the public's health. A good move, but the consumption of tobacco hasn't plummeted...
Tobacco is beyond question a very harmful substance, pleasant effects notwithstanding. Most people who use tobacco become addicted, and one of the pleasant effects that a cigarette delivers is the relief of the next dose of nicotine. Most people who use alcohol don't become addicted, but occasional drinking can still cause problems for people (making a fool of oneself is the least of it).
The problem with many products, not just tobacco and alcohol, is profits benefit from the drive to maximize consumption beyond what is good for people. "Yankee traders" (New England companies) made some huge fortunes selling opiates to the Chinese in the middle of the 19th century. Opiates were as much of a plague then as they are now. But hey... it was very profitable.
To tobacco, alcohol, weed, meth, cocaine, and opiates one can add sugar and fat -- pushed because it is profitable, even if these substances kill people.
[note: sugar and fat are essential; they are not drugs, they aren't addicting. But when they are cheaper than nutritious food, and ubiquitous, they become problematic.]
There were always been a big debate on the supply and profits of these substances. It turned out that forbidden them it is not effective at all because when those are illegal the people tend to consume even more (what a paradox!)
As I already commented to @Alkis Piskas, @Vera Mont and @Benj96: I am completely against on how the state makes profits of these "products": I did a brief research and I found out the following information regard the profit on taxation of these substances.
Spain was the fourth state that collected the most for the tax on tobacco products, with a volume of 6,513 million euros. Our country was behind Germany (14,636 million euros), France (14,319 million) and Italy (10,605 million). As regards the special tax on alcohol and alcoholic beverages, Spain drops some positions. Specifically, it was the eighth country that raised the most in 2020, with 968 million euros. This time, it was behind France (3,281 million euros), Germany (3,243), Poland (2,942), Sweden (1,613), Italy (1,248), Ireland (1,203) and the Netherlands (1,166).
"I'll sell you a few beers (this time?). You know your family is on my ass about this. Don't make my life more complicated and miserable then it already has to be. OK, pal?"
Something like that.
From experience I know if someone wants to drink or do drugs, they'll often find a way. Absent of rehab (institutionalization against one's will), man's gonna do what a man's gonna do they say. It is painful to watch when they have children, though. Perhaps that would be the largest influencing factor of any decision I would or would not make in your scenario.
From an ethical standpoint, naturally yes, it's hard for an intelligent person to watch someone they care about kill themself. The fact it's a small town private shop along with the relationship gives leeway where say for example a big box chain store would not. (You make the sale or you're fired aka the old adage "if you don't do it, somebody else will anyway")
Tax levels vary a lot by state. The District of Columbia (Washington) taxes $5 per pack; some southern states tax only pennies per pack.
In a quick search, I couldn't find much about tobacco tax revenue by state.
Does prohibition work? It does, to some extent. During the 13 years of alcohol prohibition in the United States (1920-1933) alcohol consumption was reduced significantly. High taxes tend to reduce smoking, but what really worked was banning -- and enforcing -- smoking in public indoor spaces. No more smoking at work, in bars, restaurants, buses, meetings, etc. The percentage of adults who smoke has fallen roughly from 20% to 11%. In Minnesota the rate of adult smoking is 13%. That is good, but 13% means about 450,000 smokers.
A solid majority of Minnesotans (58%) drink. Of those, about 11% had 7 or more drinks on an occasion. (I would be unconscious if I had 7 drinks in an evening.) Minnesotans drink about 2.86 gallons of ethanol per year.
With respect to ethical dilemmas... If we all looked at ethics in the "big picture" view, many? Most of us? would be compromised to some extent. Most of us are tolerant of smoking, drinking, and at least some recreational drug use, even if we don't like it.
Interesting.
Yet, the prohibition led us to another problem: mafia and corruption. If we remove alcohol from bars and liquor stores, it would end up in gangsters' territories, where the cost of each bottle or cigarette would be more expensive and exclusive to get. The prices would rise and fall when they wanted to, and if someone couldn't afford them, he will have ended up being beaten up by thugs.
On the other hand, we cannot really know if the consumption of alcohol between 1920 and 1933 decreased noticeably, because during those thirteen years, the supply of alcohol was offered by mafia and they tend to be opaque and act in secret.
I would sell him the alcohol because otherwise he risks descending into withdrawal, which can be painful and dangerous depending on the severity of his addiction. Ive seen people drink Lysol or Isopropyl just to avoid the symptoms.
In my mind the best thing would be to reason with him.
Speakeasys were not on every corner, and bootlegged alcohol was expensive. A much larger percent of the population was rural in 1920, and rural people were more likely to abstain than urban people.
Yes, corruption was THE major consequence of of prohibition. (Interestingly, though, a positive side affect was a mixing of classes, races, and homosexuals in speakeasys that had not previously been possible. After prohibition there was a crackdown on the wide open socializing that had gone on.)
True enough -- the facts on alcohol consumption during prohibition were hazy. And no, the mafia didn't publish monthly sales figures. But there are enough reports to indicate that consumption did shrink. Not everyone was willing to break the law to get a drink. Illegal alcohol was expensive. Getting alcohol required some social intelligence and inconvenience.
Well, we PERHAPS learned our lesson as far as alcohol goes. Banning public smoking but keeping tobacco legal has worked.
Reasoning with an alcoholic... hmmm. How well does that usually work?
What we collectively need to do is recognize alcoholism as a disease and not a moral failure. Diseases can be treated and/or managed. The success rate on treatment isn't great, so more emphasis on management and harm reduction,
What if he does not want help?
We could, of course, restrict refractory alcoholics' social freedom (some sort of institutionalization). There are harm reduction programs where alcoholics are cared for and can continue drinking. I like this approach. It recognizes the inability of some alcoholics to quit drinking without discarding them.
We don't know what to do for people who engage in activities that begin voluntarily, become addictions, then terminal conditions. Alcohol isn't the only addiction. There's also opiates and meth among others. Many people view addiction as an individual's moral failure, just as they view morbid obesity as a moral failure. Humans are prone to moral failure no matter what, so virtue is no protection.
I think you're insightful. As someone who works in the general area of addiction and mental ill health I would personally choose different wording. I agree 'moral failure' is a useless lens. The term alcoholic isn't commonly used any more. People have an alcohol misuse disorder and it comes in many variations and is definitely not the same for each person.
I'm not an additions academic, but I don't consider alcohol misuse to be a disease, it is an addiction, a behavioural or learned response. It's no different to an addiction to sex or shopping and probably often stems from a reaction to psychological trauma. This is certainly what I have found in the environments and life stories of the hundreds of folk I have worked with.
AA has dominated the language of alcohol use and the disease model is popular with many people from that cultish and sometimes useful organisation. This is a contentious subject because it touches on so many societal debates - personal responsibility, normalcy, recovery, meaning, hope.
I tend to find people may recover if they have meaningful alternatives to get involved in and can reimagine themselves as non-drinkers. This might require new friends and role models and a new job and deliberately acquiring alternative behaviours to the habitual patters they got stuck in. They need to recognise their behavioural triggers. Alcohol misuse is generally the result of a person's problematic relationship with their environment. It is learned behaviour and it can be unlearned, but the person requires a reason to change and personal feelings of hope.
People tend to have a 'career' in substance misuse and it can be a long road for some before change seems appealing. But I have seen people who drank methylated spirits (denatured ethanol) and aftershave come good with support and insight. People with histories of sexual abuse and trauma seem to be the hardest to support as they often have a screaming in their head that never goes way. (Social learning theory is one useful lens we can use to view addiction, but I have no desire to get into a debate about who has this subject mastered; I think we are still learning and have a long way to go.)
Professionals in a field use less vernacular terms. "Alcoholic" is a one-size-fits-all term, and a "shopping addict" is quite different from the "meth addict" I would imagine.
Quoting Tom Storm
I like that. It's positive.
I've known quite a few alcoholics, ones in recovery as well as men who were busy becoming alcoholic. AA has been helpful to some, but not all. It is at least not part of the commercial treatment industry, which Minnesota has a lot of. Too many of the programs have revolving doors. Clearly some of them are more successful as money makers than as behavior change agents. Maybe 1% of the chronic inebriates were "happy drunks". The rest were miserable.
A couple of phrases I like: "Therapy means change, not adjustment." "He not busy being born is busy dying" Bob Dylan (It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding)
One of my brothers died from drinking and smoking, and two of his three sons died of alcoholism and drug addiction. My brother was an school art teacher and performed his job adequately. His two sons had a much shorter addiction career. The whole family -- mother, father, and 3 sons, had significant MI issues (probably generational). One of the brothers was addicted to benzodiazepine and alcohol; the other was a heavy drinker and pot smoker. Oddly, the third brother managed to get his life together fairly early on and has led a healthier, happier life. He's in his 60s now.
Quoting NOS4A2
The OP stipulates that he's trying to quit, and has his family's support.
Quoting Benj96
Quoting BC
Of course we are. It's almost impossible to do the right thing - even when we're sure what that is - every time, or as well as we probably could. But when you know what it is and it's within your power to do it, if you fail to do the right thing, you feel like crap. That's your conscience telling you you could have done better.
If alcoholism is a compulsive disorder, where the alcoholic has little control over their persuance of the drug, as relief, then those that enable it for their personal benefit could be seen at least as a partial perpetrator of the crime.
Interesting, but as you said, the demand remains (inherent addiction) so means to circumnavigate government instituted penalties abound. So with regard to the inherent demand (addiction) I think upping the price only adds to the financial stress of an addict and the paradoxic irony is that this stress can compound their coping mechanism (alcoholism).
I think the best approach is not to see addiction as something that needs to be fiscally penalised but rather use the revenue generated by the vice to support recovery. In that sense all taxes from smoking and alcohol could be appropriated to rehabilitation and public health campaigns.
In that way the more of the population that drinks, the more funds are available for deterrence strategies from a support perspective rather than a penal one.
Equally, it may prompts them to seek help for the addiction, and push their families into the resolve to intervene. I don't think there is enough incentive for illicit cigarette and liquor trade to satisfy the market. The risk of arrest is too high for marginal profit, and if the price is raised beyond a certain point, the bootlegger can't compete with the legitimate vendors. That's why it's also not cost-effective for the government to outlaw soft recreational drugs.
Quoting Benj96
That is the standard policy by which such legislation is passed. In Ontario, it's actually only 13%, but we have publicly funded health-care, and smokers and drinkers contribute heavily to the patient-load.
Quoting Benj96
A good deal of money has been spent on those, and they didn't work. What did work was some punitive legislation: banning cigarettes from public and work places* and increasing penalties for traffic offences under the influence.
* When I started smoking in the 1960's, a carton of cigarettes cost $3.50 CDN; a pack was the price of three chocolate bars. People smoked everywhere; at their desks, in their cars, in movie theaters, in hospital waiting rooms. Now they don't - and children don't see it to imitate. I didn't enjoy the process, and I still miss the hit, but I'm better off both physically and financially. (Which is just as well, because they've just whapped booze with another tax hike.)
Few months back after the new year a lot of the public places selling alcohol in my town were closed I bumped into an acquaintance who enjoys his drink but is not an alcoholic in the traditional sense. Anyway after exchanging pleasantries he asked me if I knew any pubs that would be open as most were closed on this particular bank holiday.
Being a knowledgeable and helpful fella that I am I suggested a few places that might be open for business, although not guaranteed.
As we parted ways he said something like Every dirty dog finds his watering hole.