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With Halloween just around the corner, lowering the drinking age was a topic of conversation among concerned members of the PACE Partnership Council, who met at Memorial Union Tuesday to discuss ways to change the drinking culture in Madison.

As UW is often ranked high in the Princeton Review’s list of top party schools, the council discussed problems specific to the University of Wisconsin.

In attendance was Nitty Gritty owner and Tavern League President Marsh Shapiro, who expressed his disapproval of the current legal drinking age nationwide.

“Making everyone who has a beer under 21 a criminal is pretty much a ludicrous thing,” Shapiro said. “You can be legal to do absolutely anything else in this country except have a beer. One of my ambitions is to have an underage marine with a purple heart come in and serve him a beer and have a policeman arrest me for doing so.”

UW Police Department Assistant Chief Dale Burke said although 21 may not be the most effective age restriction, focusing on changing the legal age would not be the best way to allocate resources.

“I don’t see the law changing,” Burke said. “I think the train is way, way too far gone from the station to ever go back, so we will continue to forge ahead with what we have and will continue to look for ways to make the best of what is certainly an imperfect system.”

Burke believes this controversial topic will continue to be debated long into the future.

Lynn Green, representative for Dane County Human Services, said her office has been seeing an increasing number of people admitted to detox facilities.

“Detox has been full for [several] weekends this year, and all four have been UW home football game weekends,” Green said.

Although there have been problems on game days, Burke said at this point in 2007 the department recorded 28 detox conveyances, whereas in 2008, there have been only 13.

However, the number of students ticketed for underage alcohol consumption but not detained has risen.

“Whether it’s because they are more accomplished drinkers or whether the tolerance of our officers is going up, we don’t know,” Burke said. “We need to see if this is a trend or an anomaly.”

The council also discussed ways to lower alcohol-related problems on one of Madison’s most problematic weekends: Halloween.

Barb Kautz, fraternity and sorority advisor, said parties on Langdon this year will be virtually nonexistent.

“None of the fraternities are having house parties for Halloween, most likely attributed to some of the groups getting some heavy tickets and fines,” Kautz said.

According to Kautz, there is a lot of work involved in getting party permits for Halloween, and there is a high risk the party may be monitored by the police department.

The lack of parties this year may also be attributed to the Greek system’s fear of meeting the same fate as the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, which incurred $94,000 worth of fines as well as being kicked off campus after a Halloween party in 2005, Kautz said.

PACE co-director Susan Crowley said other activities have been planned at the Union as alternatives to drinking on Halloween including a folk band and several Halloween-themed films.