Student drinking is once again under attack by a familiar foe.

Members of the Policy, Alternative, Community and Education (PACE) project, University officials and the Madison Police Department held a joint press conference last Wednesday announcing a combined effort to advocate safe house parties. This venture could have been the perfect opportunity for leaders of the organization to offer students practical advice on house parties. Unfortunately, the campaign lost considerable credibility after offering students outrageously unrealistic guidelines.

As part of its mission to “reduce the consequences of high-risk drinking,” PACE worked last year to ban drink specials on State Street. Having achieved a voluntary ban on weekend drink specials, the group’s campaign is now focused on advocating safer campus house parties.

To kick off the safe house party campaign, PACE issued a pamphlet at the press conference including a mixture of ideas and suggestions for students throwing and attending house parties. However, some of the guidelines are so unrealistic that many students may altogether dismiss the entire pamphlet.

The handout, titled “Throwing a House Party: A Guide by and for UW-Madison Students,” includes a front-page list of 12 “Common reasons your party ends up shut down and/or fined.” The rest of the literature explains in detail how, if these activities are avoided or controlled, your house party will be safer.

While the effort to inform students of the potential risks associated with house parties is commendable, some of the advice the campaign has offered so far is simply impractical. Take, for example, a couple of the activities deemed to create unsafe house parties:

Charging a cover

Obviously, as is stated in the pamphlet, this includes selling cups to guests as they enter the party. While this may increase the potential for fines if police descend upon the party, this is how almost all house parties are able to operate. It is illogical to expect guests to bring their own alcohol to a party. Because alcohol is expensive and the person who bought it at least wants to break even, the host must ask each guest to help pay for alcohol. It is simple economics, to which there are few other solutions.

Keeping your party an open event and not sticking with a guest list

The handout states that, “The safest party is one with a list at the door in which the hosts of the party know everyone present.” How many house parties (aside from those held at fraternities and sororities) have guest lists? Most people have and attend parties to get to know others. Only allowing people you know to attend a party and keeping a guest list is a lot of work and something most people are unwilling to do.

Playing drinking games

Let’s be realistic: drinking games are one of the most popular activities at house parties. It is not realistic to suggest that hosts ban drinking games because they create potentially unsafe circumstances.

These specific activities are not what PACE should be focusing on. Party hosts can not or will not eliminate these activities simply because they may have consequences.

If PACE really wants its safe-house-party campaign to be taken seriously by the student body, it should focus on realistic, practical suggestions that students can and will actually use.

For instance, communication between roommates regarding the structure of the party is essential. It is important that all roommates agree to have the party and that everyone understand how many people are being invited, the estimated time people will start showing up, what is being served, etc. Encouraging roommates to sit down and discuss party procedure is the type of broad, practical suggestion PACE should put forward.

The goal of this campaign should simply be encouraging student responsibility. PACE members have many excellent resources they can use to gauge exactly what comprises the UW drinking culture and what is realistic in terms of a campaign. The PACE Partnership Council, which held a meeting yesterday, includes UW officials, members of the Madison Police Department and UW Police, bar owners, housing officials, students and many others. Most of these people work closely with students on a daily basis and know the UW drinking culture inside and out. Valuable expertise is at the fingertips of the PACE project. They should start using it.

PACE is on the right path in some areas. For instance, there is a very useful section in the handout titled “Police Showing Up/Party Busted.” This section provides information on how to keep the cops away, what to do if they do show up at your party and what legal consequences you may face if your party does get busted (included is a very practical listing of various fines and the amounts). This is the type of information that students will read and take seriously.

In order to really be successful in this campaign, it is imperative that PACE encourages student responsibility using suggestions realistic enough for students to follow. Anything else will only lose the interest of students and make a joke of this campaign.

And when that happens, nothing will be accomplished.

Kari Bellingham ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.