Spectre of Alcohol Fumes Overwhelms Berkeley
With Welcome Week 2006 just over a month away, city and university officials are facing the most pressing issue facing student and resident safety - alcohol! Oh, if only those darned New Deal Democrats had not re-legalized that firewater devil’s drink! Alas, ’tis not the case.
The first salvo comes from Danielle Seitawan from “Students for a Safer Southside”, which claims to be a student group but is not OSL-registered. Seitawan makes an audacious claim: areas near bars have higher areas of alcohol-related activity than others. She then goes on to blame these problems on alcohol consumption.
We have been observing student activity at five popular undergraduate bars in the Southside area. During these observations we have witnessed rowdy patrons after Cal vs. Stanford games refill pitcher after pitcher of beer. We have observed chugging contests and various drinking games, scantily clad teenagers sneaking in alcohol at 18-and-over music events, bartenders taking shots or swigs of beer between customers and venues that did not check IDs at the door or at the bar just because it was raining outside.
As much as patrons must ‘drink responsibly,’ bartenders, security guards, servers and other employees must ‘act responsibly’ when allowing patrons to consume alcohol. But how can we expect a bartender, who has been taking shots behind the bar, to be able to clearly judge a patron’s level of intoxication when his or her own judgment may become clouded through the course of the night? Intoxicated clientele are being served drink after drink, going unnoticed and unquestioned, and thus the potential for doing harm to themselves or others is very high.
Note that one shot takes a bartender from a responsible human being to a reckless alcoholic.
Following hot on the heels of that gem is some potentially positive press for the Cal Greek community. The Daily Cal is reporting that 2006 was a better year for Greeks, with alcohol and hazing incidents down dramatically. To be frank, it wasn’t a high bar to jump over.
…the number of alcohol-related stops on fraternity and sorority row has dropped from nine in spring 2005 to six last spring, UC police records show.
…
However, Celaya said part of the reason for the decrease in noise complaints was the movement of some parties from Greek houses to apartments and residential neighborhoods.
“Complaints did increase in those areas,” he said.
UC police records also show that alcohol-related citations and arrests in the same area actually increased from 10 in 2005 to 19 in 2006.
Let’s take a moment to assess what’s happened: following a crackdown on Greek houses, where drinking is at least marginally controlled, the amount of area alcohol violations skyrocketed as individuals in uncontrolled residences met public demand. Sounds like an effective risk management policy from the UC Berkeley administration.
This is another paricularly interesting quote:
Panhellenic Council president Nicole Mann said the new code reflects an improved relationship between the university and the Greek system.
“Concerns and opinions of all parties have been weighed equally and then acted upon as a result of the Vice Chancellor’s Task Force,” she said. “Because the community is actively participating in regulating itself as well as being a part of constantly molding our governing documents, Greek members are much more responsive to the rules that are set out.”
Unconfirmed rumors are circulating that suggest that Mann’s sorority, Delta Delta Delta, was recently placed on limited social prohbation after pictures of her sorority sisters illegally drinking in their chapter house were downloaded off of Facebook and obtained by university officials. That definitely sounds like a particularly useful example of the current Greek “self-government”.
And finally, as freshmen begin their first semester on campus, AlcoholEdu again becomes a prevalent talking point on how the Berkeley administrators waste thousands of dollars in student fees on useless and ineffective policies. Not-John Waste and Beetle have more.
AlcoholEdu… what a joke. The only thing I learned from that was how to get drunk quicker, and figure out my record BAC with that calculator (0.3 at the time, 0.34 now)
And those tests are so annoying you walk away needing a drink
Comment by jlmay — July 18, 2006 @ 5:16 pm
retarded. are we supposed to believe these little “safety student” narcs are sitting around these bars drinking a coke and taking notes? wow. stanford-cal games are a fucking crisis that happens, once a year. EMERGENCY! perhaps we can give the police an EXTRA million dollars to police southside to deal with this egregious problem of stanford cal football games.
wiener undergrads of berkeley, i know i’ve called you all wieners in the past — because you are — but there comes a time in a young wieners life when they just have to snap out of it and stop being a wiener. if only for a short period of time. with that in mind, it occurs to me that you lot are going to have to snap out of your complacent, retarded, suburban slumber, and i sense that it will be SOON, sooner than you think. soonish, indeed, you will be called upon (in all seriousness) to fight for your right to party.
my personal suggestion is illegal street parties with abundant bottled alcohol and underage consumption. the logic: if they wont leave students alone in their places of residence and their chosen hangouts to have fun, students can throw it back in their face.
the authorities cant close down the street like they do a bar, they cant sanction an unpermitted, spontaneous street party like they do a frat or sorority. so if (uc) berkeley wont play nice, put a foot up their ass — because you CAN.
Comment by mano — July 18, 2006 @ 5:24 pm
I’m not sure that I’m 100% behind Seitawan’s claim that bars don’t ID AT THE BAR because it’s raining OUTSIDE. By the same logic eunuchs rarely play gin rummy because it’s Friday.
Comment by Not JW — July 18, 2006 @ 5:52 pm
Someone needs to get Danielle a fucking martini.
Comment by k_radSurFeRboi86 — July 18, 2006 @ 6:26 pm
Speaking of drinking and partying off campus — the one year anniversary for Melia Starbuck-Willis was Wednesday, with a vigil at the tree. The Oakland Tribune ran a very honest, but very harsh column. It’s the first media piece I’ve seen that gave a blunt accounting to what happened and discussed the meaning of Willis-Starbuck’s actions that night. The piece comes from the assumption that it’s true that W-S called Hollis and told him to bring a gun to end an argument that only she was interested in prolonging. And for the first time, people speak on the record to express their problem with honoring and making an “angel” out of someone who escalated a minor trash talking argument into an armed conflict; and how the man she called to use his gun to help her win the argument decided that the best way to settle things was to fire wildly into a crowd of people.
And guess where the reporter was able to find people willing to talk harshly and negatively about Willis-Starbuck? Right here at CalStuff.
Comment by Insider — July 18, 2006 @ 11:09 pm
Where’s ‘jonp’ when you need to bash the Greek system?
Comment by some dude SD — July 19, 2006 @ 7:10 am
anyone else a little tired of mano’s incessant “wiener” rants against berkeley undergrads?
the undergrads are the heart of the school. if you don’t like ‘em, get lost.
Comment by Anonymous — July 19, 2006 @ 8:02 am
anon: shut up, you wiener!
Comment by mano — July 19, 2006 @ 10:36 am