PACE proposes new bar legislation
by James Dunham
News Reporter
University of Wisconsin PACE, Policy Alternatives Community and Education, representatives met with the Alcohol License Review Committee Wednesday to propose legislation that PACE believes curb binge-drinking.
If the city follows their advice, bars will be forced to eliminate late-night drink specials and educate their staff in recognizing fake IDs. However, the broader goal of the university’s 10-year PACE Project is to create a campus culture less inclined to drink heavily.
PACE director Sue Crowley presented the school’s agenda to the ALRC alongside LaMarr Q. Billups, Special Assistsant to John Wiley.
“We are not prohibitionists,” Crowley explained. “But we are concerned about the impact of high-risk drinking on the individual and others in the community.”
Reducing access to cheap alcohol is first on their agenda.
“When price goes up, consumption goes down,” Crowley said.
Madison held an experimental ban on drink specials at the beginning of last semester. Although results were reported inconclusive, research conducted nationally confirms the correlation between consumption and price.
PACE literature defines drink specials as all “promotions, contests and games that reward patrons with cheap or free alcohol.”
PACE has broad ambitions and is not limiting its crusade to bars.
“House parties are going to continue to be a part of campus culture,” Crowley said.
Nonetheless, the project has increased communication between landlords and the Madison police force to identify what Crowley termed “problem tenants.” In a step more visible to students, campus beverage stores must now obtain personal information from people renting kegs.
These initiatives are the result of research conducted between 1996 and 2002 on a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Louisiana State University, Florida State University and the University of Delaware were also among the nine schools studied. After this six-year exploratory period, the grant was renewed through 2006.
Based on the data collected, PACE is taking what it calls an environmental approach, “a scan of what happens in the community that affects individuals’ decisions on drinking,” Crowley said.
One of the chief problems is that nearly all of Madison’s entertainment venues hold alcohol licenses. As the owner of Club Amazon Jon Okonek explained, locales hosting non-alcoholic events face thin or nonexistent profit margins.
“The economics of it, unfortunately, just aren’t there,” Okonek said.
On nights without an age requirement, he said, an average customer spends 25 cents. When the club’s Wednesday night underage party was at its most successful, Okonek tried moving it to Friday. But attendance dropped.
“The reality of it is that kids don’t want to go to a non-alcohol place,” Okonek said.
Those from PACE were not convinced.
“What we have done is to give students who don’t drink, or don’t drink so much, another option,” Billups said. “More than just drinking is catching on.”
However, no changes will be made to the city’s policies until the ALRC reaches a consensus on the PACE proposal.