Following with the university’s recently amplified stance on student drinking, Chancellor John Wiley said Friday he is ending the sale of 46-oz. cups of beer at the Memorial Union Terrace.
The paper cups that have been referred to as “big gulps,” which replaced plastic pitchers years ago, will not be part of the outdoor ambiance the Terrace is known for.
“Those beers are part of what the culture is here,” UW senior Jessica Miller, who served as chair of UW’s student government this school year, said. “How many students do you know who go to the Terrace after their finals? It’s everyone, and they drink 46 ounces.”
Wiley’s announcement followed closely with the Union’s decision to expand hours and remain open until bartime Thursday through Saturday and until midnight on weeknights. Wisconsin Union director Mark Guthier said some students and city officials saw Wiley’s decision as hypocritical since he recently announced support for the city’s limitations on drink specials in downtown bars.
“I told Mark . . . to go back to pitchers and deposits and to hell with the auditors,” Wiley told The Capital Times, in reference to the financial imbalance formerly caused by plastic pitchers that required $1 deposits. Guthier said pitchers were often stolen or left on tables rather than returned for the deposit.
The administration said it supported the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s plan for extended hours because the Union’s Rathskellar and Terrace are entertainment venues that allow underage students to socialize and “allow students of legal age to drink responsibly,” a press release from UW explained.
“Unfortunately, this whole issue has come about because of extending the building hours; it got skewed,” Guthier said, attributing the negative spin to the downtown tavern league, which opposed the drink-special ban Wiley supports. “The issue got focused on the beer and the alcohol instead of the hours ? that’s not what we hoped the focus would be,” he commented.
Beer is currently served in 46-, 22- and 16-oz. cups at Memorial Union. Although one UW sophomore–who admits to having drunk a 46-oz. beer while underage–called Wiley’s decision “traumatic to students,” others say changing to a pitcher serving will not change the frequency of binge-drinking associated with the Terrace.
“The point of beer out there is to get drunk; it doesn’t matter what quantity you buy it in, students will just buy more smaller cups–especially because having a deposit on pitchers would be a huge hassle,” said UW junior Dana Feigel.
Forty-six-oz. cups range in price from $5.75 to $7.50 and are two ounces short of four servings, what the Harvard Alcohol Study and UW’s Robert Wood Johnson Project refer to as “binge-drinking” if consumed in one sitting. The next smaller size, 22 oz., costs between $2.75 and $4.25.
The cost the Union will absorb from the change in serving containers could be substantial, Guthier said. He is not upset, nor is he shocked.
“If going to a plastic pitcher will help ease the minds of people on campus and in administration, I don’t mind doing it and taking financial losses to do so,” he said. “Maybe we can use the extra cups we have bought for popcorn sales or something.”