Safety and the Street

The charges filed against the presidents of Tiger Inn, Cottage Club and Cloister Inn for serving alcohol to a minor and maintaining a nuisance have caused student indignation and some Borough satisfaction that they represent the beginnings of a "longterm solution to the problem [of alcohol abuse in the clubs]." As the three clubs consider going off tap indefinitely and the threat of closure to the public hangs over them, there are a few things that University students and the Borough should keep in mind.

First, the Borough has both the right and the duty to enforce underage drinking laws when it has the evidence to bring cases against organizations which may have violated those laws. And, ultimately, the clubs are safer when the laws are enforced; club officers, keenly aware of their liability, are attentive to dangerous situations or to students who seem ill.

Nonetheless, the Borough should remember that it is just this liability which makes the clubs safer for students than room parties. It would be foolish of anyone, including administrators and local politicians, to pretend that underage drinking does not occur at a university. It will not stop if some of the clubs go off tap or even if some are closed for long periods of time; this will simply change the focus of drinking to room parties. This is decidedly a worse situation for the University, which will be plagued with noisy room parties instead of having the revelry safely confined to the Street after midnight.

Shifting drinking to private rooms is also likely to be worse for the Borough: Fraternities, sororities and the hosts of room parties tend to serve hard alcohol and do not have the same incentives as clubs to care for students. No one group of students is specifically assigned the task of keeping room parties safe, such as is the case with on-duty club officers. It seems fair to suggest that drinking at room parties is at least equally as perilous as imbibing on Prospect Avenue.

College drinking has many grim consequences, and the Borough's concern about alcohol abuse is warranted. Even so, as the Borough considers whether it will narrow the legal charges against the clubs, it should note that the while the clubs facilitate the inevitable college partying, they also restrain it to some extent and make it safer.