SACRAMENTO — The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control recently certified its 500,000th participant in its Responsible Beverage Service Program, which mandates training for California’s alcohol servers.

To date, 500,518 servers and managers at more than 56,000 statewide businesses in California have been trained and certified in responsible beverage service. On average, more than 10,000 alcohol servers are certified in responsible beverage service each month.

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

Assembly Bill 1221, signed into law in 2017, created the Responsible Beverage Service Training Program Act with the intention of reducing alcohol-related harm to local communities.

The bill required ABC to create a program to ensure that on-premises servers of alcoholic beverages and their managers are educated on the risks of serving alcohol and related responsible practices.

Currently, alcohol servers and their managers working in California must have a valid RBS certification from ABC to serve alcohol. If they are newly hired, they must pass an exam and be certified within 60 days of their first date of employment.

To meet the training requirement, any on-premises alcohol server or manager must register in the Responsible Beverage Service Program, or RBS, Portal, take training from an authorized RBS Training Provider, and pass the ABC Alcohol Server Certification exam within 30 days of their confirmed training.

There are currently 80 RBS training providers offering training in English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese. The exam is available in English, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog 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.”

ABC protects communities through education, prevention, and enforcement programs designed to increase compliance with California’s alcoholic beverage laws.

If you are a new alcohol server or have not yet obtained certification, please visit www.abc.ca.gov/education/rbs to learn more.