A WAITER has been sacked from a four-star hotel on the Costa del Sol after bosses caught him drinking on the job.
A private investigator hired by Hotel Benalma in Benalmadena, west of Malaga, reported that the employee – who had worked at the hotel for 13 years – regularly helped himself to alcohol while fetching drinks for customers from a secluded bar.
According to the report, the waiter would then neck the drinks in a storeroom or brazenly gulp them down while ‘toasting’ colleagues during his shift.
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Hotel managers first grew suspicious after noticing one of the bars was recording fewer sales than the number of drinks disappearing from its inventory.
The hired private eye later confirmed the shortfall was down to the waiter quietly nicking drinks behind the bar.
The employee challenged his dismissal, arguing that as a long-serving member of staff he should have been given a formal warning before being shown the door.
He also claimed the behaviour appeared to be tolerated, insisting other staff had drunk on the job without facing punishment.
But Andalucia’s High Court of Justice was having none of it.
Judges ruled the hotel’s code of conduct clearly banned alcohol, drugs and tobacco during working hours – rules the waiter had been fully briefed on when he was hired.
Finding him in ‘breach of contract’ and guilty of ‘misappropriating company property’, the court upheld the hotel’s decision to sack him.
In short, the judges agreed: happy hour was not included in his job description.
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