Two bar workers have been fined for serving alcohol to a drunk footballer who could hardly stand up and was later found dead on the South Australian hotel premises.
In the four-and-a-half hours Jason Short is shown on the pub's CCTV footage, he sways, staggers, dances in a "disinhibited manner", is barely able to stand, and sits on a bench "essentially comatose", a magistrate has found.
Mr Short, who played for a local B-grade football team, was found dead in a bedroom at the Kingston Crown Inn Hotel, about 300km southeast of Adelaide, after drinking heavily on April 30, 2011.
Last month, Magistrate Paul Foley found Alison Louise Selleck, 21, Tom Gardner, 32, and Firstlite Pty Ltd, the holder of the hotel's licence, guilty of supplying liquor to Mr Short when he was a noticeably alcohol-impaired person.
On Thursday, he imposed a $500 fine on Selleck, who is now studying law, but did not record a conviction, noting she was 18 at the time and is well-regarded in the community.
He fined Gardner $9000 and Firstlite $6000, recording convictions against both.
He said Gardner, a shareholder and director of Firstlite, had been "the driving force behind the hotel" for some years and was heavily involved in the community, particularly with sporting groups.
"Mr Gardner, your role in what happened was quite different to Ms Selleck," Mr Foley said.
"You were the person with specific responsibility of ensuring compliance with the Liquor Licence Act."
Since the death, the hotel had increased its training of staff and employed more workers in busy times.
A doctor could not determine the cause of Mr Short's death, but said it may have flowed from his high concentration of alcohol combined with the medication he was taking for mental health issues.
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