The Associated Students of Madison’s Legislative Affairs committee addressed the effects of city alcohol policy as well as the upcoming Student Housing Fair at a meeting Monday night.

The Alcohol License Density Ordinance has been in effect in the city since 2005 and puts a cap on how many taverns there can be in downtown Madison.

“At the time that ALDO was put in place, there were a certain number of taverns and a certain number of liquor licenses,” Legislative Affairs member Rachel Lepak said. “If you are a tavern that means that 50 percent or more of your profits come from alcohol sales.”

Lepak said putting a cap on the number of taverns in downtown Madison is a problem because ALDO doesn’t allow for any entertainment venues that make money from alcohol sales. She said any additional taverns or venues that would profit from alcohol sales cannot be opened because of the cap put in place by the ordinance.

This includes any 18-and-older venues that would like to serve alcohol because they would then technically be classified as taverns. Lepak said the cap limits the amount of venues and entertainment options available to those students who are under the legal drinking age.

“There is this mentality that less bars means that less people are going out, but that’s just not true.” Lepak said. “A lot of people are going to house parties or drinking in their basements, and they could be consuming drinks and not know where the alcohol they’re drinking is coming from.”

Lepak said she argues that the less bars, less drinking mentality does nothing to prevent the amount of underage drinking on campus. She said ALDO is limiting the amount of entertainment venues available to students on campus who are under 21.

Legislative Affairs Chair Daniel Statter said ALDO is an important issue to University of Wisconsin students because they are the largest consumers of entertainment in the city.

“The main effort on ALDO is to ensure that students are aware of what is going on,” Statter said. “We want to make sure that students have a voice in that process because students are major consumers in this city of entertainment.”

Lepak is a member of the Alcohol License Review Committee, which is currently looking into ALDO’s restrictions and will make recommendations to the city council concerning changes to the ordinance.

“Our effort here is to make sure that people are aware of it and that there is continual representation,” Statter said.

The committee also discussed ASM’s role in the upcoming Housing Fair.

Statter said while ASM is no longer planning the fair, they are taking on a more administrative function. He said ASM would attend in order to provide students with information about new ordinances that could affect them as they are signing leases and looking into other housing options.

Statter said ASM will be there to answer questions on issues such as nuisance ordinances, voter registration and campus safety.

The Housing Fair will take place on Monday, Nov. 12 and it will be held in Varsity Hall in Union South.