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Drinking at Princeton
3rd eating club president charged
Tuesday, February 11, 2003 By KEVIN SHEA PRINCETON BOROUGH - A third Princeton University eating club president has been charged with serving alcohol to a minor in his club, borough police reported yesterday. Officers charged Matthew Groh, 22, president of the Cap and Gown eating club, after police went to the club early Sunday morning to assist an unconscious and drunken 19-year-old unidentified female student, police said. Last week, borough police announced they had charged four university students - two of them the eating club presidents - with either serving or making alcohol available to minors in the Quadrangle and Colonial eating clubs. Those charges, police revealed, were the result of the department sending undercover officers into the eating clubs since November to try to combat underage drinking. The latest incident occurred during Bicker Weekend, which annually caps a period in which students bid to join the dozen eating clubs that line Prospect Street. It's a process equivalent to rushing or pledging a fraternity or sorority at other universities, and the last weekend usually features nights of heavy partying and intense drinking. This year's Bicker could be viewed as tame compared to 2001 and 2002, in which 15 and eight people respectively needed medical treatment. University spokeswoman Lauren Robinson-Brown said yesterday three undergraduate students required treatment over the weekend at The Medical Center at Princeton or the McCosh Health Center on campus because of alcohol use. The incidents were the only ones handled by the university public safety officers and do not include anybody who sought treatment for intoxication at either medical center on their own, Robinson-Brown said. Those numbers were unavailable yesterday. Two of the incidents originated at the eating clubs, Colonial and Cap and Gown, and one could only be traced to an on-campus incident. In related incidents, a person was taken to the medical center from a graduate school area Saturday, and on Sunday, public safety officers confiscated a keg from a vehicle parked behind the Frist Center. At the Westminster Choir College nearby, borough police arrested Brett Tishim, 18, of South Brunswick late Saturday night after being called to a dormitory room there. Tishim allegedly smoked marijuana and drank vodka while on prescription medication and passed out in the room of a student he was visiting, Reading said. He was taken to the medical center for evaluation, and police later charged him with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia found in his belongings. The Cap and Gown incident handled by the university officers occurred at 12:10 a.m. Sunday when they had to assist a person walking from Cap and Gown to McCosh because of alcohol use, Robinson-Brown said. The person was later treated at the medical center, she said. About 10 minutes later, borough police were called to the club to assist the unconscious female. Police spokesman Lt. John Reading said officers found the teen slipping in and out of consciousness on the floor of an upstairs bathroom. Officers questioned Groh, who was at the club, and then charged him with serving an alcoholic beverage to a minor. Groh was issued a summons and released on his own recognizance at the scene. He is scheduled in court March 17. Reached by telephone at the club yesterday, Groh declined comment on the incident but said he was preparing a statement about it. The dozen clubs housed in mansions that line Prospect Street are technically independent of the Ivy League university. They are combination residential, social and private dining establishments that date to the late 1800s or early 1900s. They were founded by students and are run by current students and alumni. Reading said last week that underage drinking remains a constant problem at the clubs, and the undercover operations did not result from a particular incident. Police Chief Charles Davall warned in January 2001, when he was a captain, that undercover officers might be used to combat underage drinking. |
Yeah. Nevermind sexual assult or anything like that. We need to go after those underage drinkers. If you die of alchohol poisoning after you are 21 then who cares. :rolleyes:
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