Frosh call for sub-free Cannon

Though Princeton’s eating clubs have had a reputation for being places of drunken debauchery, some students are advocating for Cannon Club to be substance free when it reopens in February 2009.

Jarett Schwartz ’11 created a facebook.com group called “Princeton ’11 Students for a Sub-Free Cannon Club” within a day or two of reading The Daily Princetonian’s Feb. 20, 2008 article “Cannon Club’s opening set for February 2009.”

Schwartz said that he has been thinking about the idea of a substance-free eating club since first looking at Princeton as a prospective student. When he read the article, he realized that freshmen could potentially change Cannon Club’s reputation.

What Schwartz was unaware of, however, was the nature of Cannon Club’s reputation before it closed 34 years ago. Named by Sports Illustrated as one of the top three “Jock Houses” in the nation in the late 1960s, Cannon Club was once known for throwing outrageous parties and for its members’ consumption of inordinate amounts of beer, according to an article published in the ‘Prince’ in 2006.

Nevertheless, Schwartz’s idea is not without support. The group is still in its infancy and only has 10 members, but some students who live in substance- free housing have expressed interest in a club that prohibits drugs and alcohol.

“[I]f there was an eating club that was sub-free, as long as they provided good music and the people were cool, I would love to participate. But I am not actually sure how successful such an eating club would be,” Adetola Olatunji ’11 said in an e-mail. “There aren’t that many people who go to eating clubs without drinking,” she added.

Olatunji went on to explain that if a substance-free eating club were to thrive, it would have to offer something more to attract students. “[F]or a sub-free eating club to be successful or to be made universally appealing to the campus, it has to be made clear what they are providing people in [place] of alcohol,” she said. A “sub-free … eating club needs to bring something unique to the table, something people won’t be able to find at other eating clubs.”

Olatunji said she is not sure what exactly that unique feature would be, but added, “I’ll keep thinking.”

Other students who live in substance-free housing were skeptical about the success of an eating club without drugs and alcohol. Charles Li ’11, a member of Schwartz’s Facebook group, admitted that he initially thought the group was a joke. While he found Schwartz’s idea to be a good one, he noted that it “probably wouldn’t happen.”

Schwartz has yet to talk to any University administrators or members of eating club graduate boards about his plan. He said that he wants to wait until his Facebook group has at least 20 to 25 members to demonstrate more support for the idea.

Former president of Charter Club and president of the Interclub Council (ICC) Will Scharf ’08 said in an e-mail that the proposal for a substance-free eating club emerges every few years. He explained that though many clubs do serve alcohol a few nights a week, there is much more to club life.

Charter Club “has a large number of non-drinking members who play as active a role in club life as anyone else,” he added.

When asked about the possibility of a substance-free Cannon Club, Warren Crane ’62, president of the Dial Elm Cannon Graduate Board, refused to comment. “I have no thoughts about it because I haven’t heard about it [before],” he said.

Tim Prugar ’06, graduate chair of the ICC, could not be reached for comment.