Alcohol bottles image by Jeff Tumale on unsplash.com

The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) announced in a news release Thursday that it has reached a milestone, issuing more than 500,000 certificates for its Responsible Beverage Service (RBS) Program, a mandatory training program for California’s alcohol servers.

The department has certified a total of 500,518 servers and managers at more than 56,000 businesses throughout California. On average, more than 10,000 certificates are issued monthly, validating training of alcohol servers in the state.

“This has been an amazing, ongoing joint effort between the department and industry partners,” said Joseph McCullough, ABC Director. “The positive engagement and participation we’ve seen from our licensees shows their dedication to promoting responsible alcohol service.”

In 2017, Assembly Bill 1221 was signed into law, creating the RBS Training Program Act, aimed at reducing alcohol-related harm to communities statewide. The bill mandated the creation of a program ensuring that alcohol servers are educated on the risks of serving alcohol and related responsible practices.

Alcohol servers in California must be certified within 60 days of their first day of employment. Certificates are issued following the completion of a roughly two-hour training course and exam.

Employees seeking certification must register in the RBS portal and take one of the training courses offered by an authorized RBS training provider. The exam must be passed within 30 days of the start of the employee’s training.

Currently, 80 training providers offer training in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. Tests are available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Punjabi, Tagalog, Hindi, Korean and Vietnamese.

“We are working hard to ensure all servers have access to this program,” said Megan Brewer, ABC staff services manager for the RBS Training Program. “Our goal is to ensure licensees and servers have access to training in as many languages as possible. We are constantly working to offer additional programs, especially non-English programs.”

New servers or servers who have not yet obtained their RBS certification are encouraged to visit the ABC website to learn more.