The City of Madison is preparing for the annual Mifflin Street Block Party, and officials will enforce the glass-bottle ban again this year in an effort to keep streets clean and citizens safe.
The ban was first adopted three years ago and has since been implemented each year on both the Halloween and the Mifflin Street Block Party weekends.
The ordinance, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4 said, allows the city to designate specific "glass free zones" in public areas where it is illegal to possess glass bottles of any type, open or closed. Verveer noted the first and primary reason for the ban is safety, but added it also decreases the amount of cleanup.
"I would argue the law has worked beautifully and exceeded the expectations [we had] when we first implemented this law," Verveer said. "Of course, the number of people with cut feet has decreased, but the cleanup effort was also that much easier."
Violators of the ban during the weekend of April 29 are subject to citation and a fine for the offense.
According to manager Matt Bents of Riley's Wine and Liquor, stores pull glass bottles of beer off the shelves on the weekend of the block party. However, he added, the amount of liquor, specifically beer, sold is not affected.
"[The ban] doesn't affect sales; people just buy around it by getting cans," Bents said.
Verveer noted his original intention in proposing the ban was not to decrease the amount of alcohol people buy during the celebration or to discourage consumption of alcohol.
Though the glass-bottle ban seems necessary and effective from the City Council's point of view, some students, residents and partygoers see the ban differently.
Verveer said oftentimes people who attend the Mifflin Street Block Party are from out of town and are unaware of the law. But in other cases, people are just unhappy with the premise of the ban, he added.
"I realize it may be 'cooler' to drink out of a glass bottle, but deal with it," he said. "I've seen many block parties before the ban and many after the ban, and it really has made a difference in the amount of glass kicked, stepped on or used as weapons."
The ordinance has been in place for a few years, but from the amount of violators of the law, Verveer blamed a lack of knowledge on the subject and added the city could do better with signs to publicize the glass-free zone.
"The basic bottom line is, people were taking out beer bottles and running out of places to dispose of them — you can imagine that accidentally, those bottles get kicked around and smashed," he added. "Mifflin Street is such a special day, and I don't think people will get too excited about whether they will get to drink out of a bottle or a can."
