Public Safety breaks up annual Clapp tradition, calling it a 'drinking game'

Public Safety officers shut down the "12 Drinks of Clapp" party shortly after it began Saturday night. The event, which featured drinks from Jell-O shots to Cosmopolitans, usually takes place in 1927-Clapp Hall on the same night that eating clubs hold Winter Formals.

Public Safety learned of the event from a confidential informant, said Don Reichling, acting director of the campus police. Although the party has been an annual tradition, Public Safety did not learn of it until this year, Reichling said.

"My informant says it's been going on for several years, but it's been so under wrap that we haven't gotten wind of it," he said. Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson, "[The administration] may not know as much as the students think we know."

Jim Lanzi, the Public Safety representative to Wilson College, went door to door during the afternoon to warn residents not to hold the party, Reichling and residents of the building said.

Around 10 p.m., a Public Safety officer responding to a door alarm in Clapp saw students walking around with cups and drinking alcohol, Reichling said.

Officers entered five of 10 rooms that had been holding the party and confiscated the alcohol, Clapp resident John Dempsey '05 said.

One sophomore resident, whose room featured tequila body shots, said he shut his door when he heard that proctors had entered the building.

"All of a sudden I realized that we still had the body shot sign on the door," he said. "I go to open the door, and there's three proctors standing outside."

Public Safety officers entered the room, confiscated the alcohol and issued his room a possession/serving violation, the sophomore said.

Public Safety viewed the "12 Drinks of Clapp" as particularly serious because it was considered a drinking game, Reichling said. According to the University's "Rights, Rules, Responsibilities," serving alcohol for a drinking game is considered an "especially serious violation."

Although some may not consider the "12 Drinks of Clapp" a drinking game, "there's a subtle encouragement to go to all 12 rooms," said Daniel Silverman, the University's chief medical officer.

There is a high correlation between drinking games and the number of cases of excessive alcohol consumption on campus, Silverman said.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

In the meantime, some students are worried that the "12 Drinks of Clapp" may soon go the way of the Nude Olympics, which were canceled in 1999.

"Whether or not the University chooses to [intervene] again, I think the students will be too frightened to do it again, given what happened this year," Dempsey said.