Last week, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Angela Bartell issued summary judgment in favor of the 24 Madison-Dane County Tavern League bars, throwing the seemingly infamous anti-trust lawsuit out of court once and for all. To this end, we applaud such a decision — it is clear the bars ought not be held liable for city-sponsored coercion into the operation of their business, and claims of collusion or antitrust activity are frivolous at best.
Angry over attempts to impose excessive measures to curb student drinking, it is no wonder activist students have sought aggressive means to fight back against puritanical initiatives specifically targeting student freedom. That many beloved local bars in compliance with anti-drink special policy faced lawsuits from students is understandable, but the plaintiffs’ ire was misplaced.
The impetus for now commonly understood weekend drink special restrictions, and thereby the lawsuit seeking to stop them, grew from prevailing sentiments in local government and campus administration that curtailing access to alcohol is and remains the best means of curbing binge drinking. When Chancellor John Wiley made his trip three years ago to the Alcohol License Review Committee and urged adoption of drink special regulation, the die was cast against students and bars clamoring against price controls. And it is with this impetus in mind that City Council, borrowing on ideas drawn directly from Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education Project’s playbook, has decided to give students yet another reason to cringe: keg registration.
If this new city ordinance, proposed April 5 by Ald. Paul Skidmore, District 9, is passed, all Madison keg purchasers will complete a form specifying precisely where the alcohol will be consumed and a description of all alcohol purchased. The buyer must also officially pledge that underage individuals will not consume the beer. These records would be kept by the liquor stores for at least one year, and could be used as evidence in prosecutions against the buyers.
In an age when worries over government officials accessing library records stir rabid protest, it is appalling that such deplorable intrusions into the civil liberties of its citizens are being discussed in what many proudly laud as the most “progressive” city in America. Broad regulatory attempts to mitigate the effects of binge drinking like price controls are one thing — infringing upon the very privacy of individual citizens is quite another. But intrusions into the personal lives of students or the business practices of bars are merely collateral damage in local regulators’ crusade to cleanse unpleasant iniquities from the lives of students. The smoking ban comes readily to mind.
Students understand the danger presented by binge drinking and recognize it as a safety issue that requires attention. Official action in the name of protecting student’s lives is good cause for breaking up rowdy revelers on a creaky Bassett Street balcony. Intrusions upon civil liberties are not.
