Mother Of Young Woman Who Died Of Alcohol Poisoning Wants Bars To Cut Off Drunk Patrons

Shana Dowdeswell

The mother of a 23-year-old actress who died of alcohol poisoning after a night out in the city last year says the Greenwich Village bar that served her is responsible, and she's trying to get drinking establishments to stop serving patrons who are already drunk.

Shana Dowdeswell, an up-and-coming actress, passed out outside her mother's home on Minetta Street on December 7th, after reportedly taking four free whiskey shots at The Basement, a bar and recording studio on West 8th Street. Dowdeswell died five days later, and her mother, Laurie Smith, says the bartender who served her daughter should have known to cut her off. "I don’t blame him because he didn’t come drag her off the sidewalk and into the bar, but instead of giving her a whiskey, let’s give her a glass of ginger ale or a big glass of water or maybe it’s time for her to go home," Smith told CBS News. "It seems to be almost like, ‘Come on kids, oh come here and you could have free shots.'"

It's illegal for New York State bars to serve people who are obviously intoxicated, but the law is not always enforced.

Smith attended a Sixth Precinct Community Council meeting this week to ask for cops' help in cracking down on binge-drinking in bars, and proposed a possible grassroots initiative with other affected parents. "The same way there’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving, there has to be a Mothers Against Overdrinking," she said. "Wake up kids—it has grotesque outcomes." Dowdeswell's Blood Alcohol Content was at a whopping 0.39 on December 7th; the young actress, who was on several episodes of Law & Order and will be appearing posthumously in The Big Wedding alongside Robin Williams later this year, reportedly started going to bars as a teenager.

"She probably had issues around alcohol that we weren't aware of," Smith told DNAinfo. And Dowdeswell's not the only young NYC actress who met with a tragic fate after a night of drinking recently; earlier this month, 22-year-old Park Slope actress Emily Singleton was found dead in the track bed at the Canal Street subway station, and police officers believed she drunkenly stumbled on the tracks after a night out at a bar on 14th Street.