Many campus-area bars will voluntarily ban drink specials in response to concerns from Bascom Hall and City Hall officials that drink specials lead to high-risk drinking.
After months of resisting University of Wisconsin and city officials’ calls for drink-special regulation, dozens of downtown bars agreed to stop serving drink specials on Friday and Saturday nights, and to quit advertising drink specials.
The Tavern League, a coalition of bar owners, created the initiative over the summer and will announce the specifics of the initiative at a press conference today at 2 p.m. at the Nitty Gritty.
Few Regent Street taverns or bars east of the Capitol are participating in the voluntary ban, according to Ald. Mike Verveer, Dist. 4, who was involved in discussions about the offer. He said some bars that agreed were hesitant to halt advertising, citing long-term contracts with media outlets.
Dick Lyshek, a Tavern League member and owner of Bullfeathers, said most bars where students hang out will have no drink specials on weekends.
“We will try to maintain the ban for at least one year to see if it is of any value,” Lyshek said. “The data will be compiled to show whether drink specials actually do lead to the laundry list of complaints they have been blamed for.”
Last May, the Robert Wood Johnson Project (renamed the PACE project) conducted a study linking drink specials to alcohol-related problems downtown. Bill Lugo, the project evaluator, said in May that the areas with the highest concentration of violations were not necessarily where students live and not related to the density of liquor-licensed establishments, and they had four times as many violations as any other area of the city.
“The majority of alcohol-induced violations and assaults were within the 600 to 800 block[s] of State Street, University Avenue and Johnson Street,” Lugo said. “This same area has a high concentration of taverns with drink specials.”
Members of the Alcohol License Review Committee, which launched discussion about the effects of drink specials last year, appreciated the initiative.
ALRC chair Tim Bruer said although the ban is not a cure-all, he commended the alcohol industry’s serious effort to work collectively toward public safety. He said UW leadership also appreciated the initiative.
“I hope this proactive initiative by the [bar] industry will discourage further consideration this fall of legislation banning specials,” Verveer said. “It would be nice to think this effort by the bars would be sufficient to convince Chancellor [John] Wiley and city council members to let this issue rest.”
Lyshek said another goal of the ban is to improve the image of State Street and the bars themselves through the Safer Bars program, which trains bar staff in handling barroom aggression. New employees of participating bars are encouraged to attend the workshop at 2 p.m. Oct. 8 at the Madison Concourse Hotel.
