Borough drops charge against TI

Editor's note appended

Charges of serving alcohol to a minor against Tiger Inn's president will be dropped if the club is convicted of no other similar charges before the end of the academic year, Princeton Borough Municipal Court Judge Russell Annich ruled in late December. The club also agreed not to serve any alcohol during January.

The initial charge against Chris Merrick '08 of maintaining a nuisance was dropped, and the charge of serving alcohol to a minor, originally brought against Merrick, was transferred to the club's graduate board and is still pending. This charge will be dropped if the club is not convicted of any other charges of serving alcohol to a minor before June 2, 2008. If the club is convicted of that or a similar charge before June 2, however, it will be required to plead guilty to the pending charges brought this fall.

"It's really a carrot-and-stick approach. The carrot is that these charges are dropped if they behave, the stick is that they have to plead guilty if they're convicted some time in the spring," TI attorney G. Robert Wills said. "It's definitely a new type of deal for the eating clubs. We used some imagination. I basically came up with it and was able to sell it to the prosecutor, who's a reasonable guy."

Attorney Kim Otis, who resigned as Borough prosecutor effective Dec. 31 after a three-year term, prosecuted the case for the Borough.

"I was pleased with the deal, given the circumstances," Otis said. "It wasn't a great case; I had an out-of-state witness who I couldn't subpoena and who was wavering about whether or not he had really been at Tiger Inn."

Otis said the purpose of the deal was to force the board and club itself to maintain responsibility for regulating the alcohol served at TI. "[The deal] came out of a joint discussion with Tiger Inn, their attorney and myself," he said. "I would say it was more my idea than theirs."

Merrick said he was pleased with the Borough's "creativity and flexibility" in dealing with the case and that he believes the club is making progress toward meeting the conditions of the deal made with the Borough.

"Over the past two years Tiger Inn has instituted a number of new policies to ensure the safety of our members and guests, and we will continue making strides in this direction," Merrick said. "Although it certainly is not an easy task, I am confident that the members of TI will do whatever it takes to make the club a fun and safe environment for years to come."

Richard Thompson '55, a member of the TI graduate board, said he thought the agreement made with the Borough was fair, adding that he believed the procedures and regulations in place would effectively eliminate any similar violations in the future.

"[The graduate board is] cautiously optimistic that the entire matter will [be] disposed of on June 2, 2008," Thompson said in an email.

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Wills also said he believed TI would do "whatever it could" to make sure it wasn't convicted before June 2 even though, he said, "within reason, there are only certain things you can do. [I'm telling] everyone to behave."

Otis agreed that the club was making efforts to regulate underage drinking. "I think Tiger Inn has been very conscientious," he said. "All the clubs have made a good effort to curb underage drinking — well, a relatively good effort, I mean — you're dealing with people who are going to drink no matter what."

If the club is convicted of another similar charge before June 2 and is forced to plead guilty to the pending charges, Wills and Otis both predict that TI will probably also face charges of maintaining a nuisance from the Borough. If convicted of that, Otis said the club might have to close for up to a year. Wills added that it is possible that the club would be forced to sell its property or turn it over to the Borough. "It's an old provision, originally used to shut down things like brothels and opium dens, but it's still there," he said.

Merrick said he thinks the club's new-member recruitment in the lead-up to Bicker in early February will be unaffected by the fact that the club will not be serving alcohol this month.

"I believe that TI's bicker class will be comprised of people who want to join the club primarily because they enjoy the company and camaraderie of other members of the club, and I do not think that a couple of nights off in January will have any impact on that," he said.

Editor's note

Tiger Inn was not convicted of any subsequent charges, and the Borough dismissed the pending charge of serving alcohol to a minor on June 9, 2008.