Every cause has an effect. But this time, the effect of a voluntary ban on weekend drink specials has not resulted in a significant decrease in alcohol-related crimes. Rather, it has only left less money in the pockets of students. Even worse, policy-makers have not yet woken up to the reality of the ban’s failure.

A report released by the Policy Alternatives Community and Education (PACE) coalition showed that since the voluntary weekend drink special ban began in September 2002, there has actually been an increase in disorderly conduct. These crimes, defined as fights, aggravated battery and assault, jumped by 26 percent on Thursdays, 38 percent on Fridays, and 38.4 percent on Saturdays. Like PACE, we find this significant rise in alcohol-related crimes disturbing, and we applaud some of their efforts to create a safer drinking environment, such as encouraging bar owners to offer food alternatives during high-volume consumption times.

However, the voluntary weekend drink-special ban — which we opposed on both philosophical and practical grounds — has proven an utter failure as a public policy initiative. The ban, accepted by several bars after tremendous political pressure from Bascom, has not resulted in any significant decrease in alcohol-related crimes. At best, the alarmingly high movement of these numbers in the other direction demonstrates that the regulatory move has proven ineffective. At worst, the ban — in conjunction with other efforts — has been detrimental.

Yet PACE, particularly the project’s principal investigator Aaron Brower, argues that the data is inconclusive. He points to the fact that only 19 of the 52 downtown bars participated in the voluntary ban, which makes it hard for PACE to know what the results could be if more of the bars participated.

But if this is the case — that the study would be inconclusive from the start because too few bars were participating — why did PACE and Bascom push for the ban? Simple: they believed the final evidence would come down on their side, proving their predictions correct that a weekend drink special ban would make the city safer.

We believe that if this lack of participation were such a problem from the outset — which Brower, the rest of PACE and Bascom must have known — they should not have continued to disingenuously assert that the ban would yield positive results. We wonder if PACE and Bascom would urge students, the true subjects of this regulation, to keep this data in context if it had proven their predictions right. Alas, that data has done nothing but prove those predictions wrong. Alcohol-related crimes have gone up significantly, not down.

Clearly, the ineffectiveness of the weekend drink special ban cannot be ignored or spun. It has merely increased the cost for students to drink — an effect which has not, in fact, decreased consumption. Students will drink, a reality in which policy-makers must learn to live.

Yet that fact should not translate into pipe dreams of regulatory wonder. This ban has been an utter failure. We urge Bascom and PACE to re-examine their position on this matter while pursuing more effective initiatives to curb dangerous over-consumption and disorderly conduct.