[Eupolis]

First I'll try to sum up what I've seen here so far.

- josh8o is surprised by the tactics that the SDSU Greek Advisor is choosing to enforce alcohol rules -- it's not clear whether the rules that are being enforced are the recruitment rules or the state law. Maybe that doesn't really matter. Josh's surprise comes from the choice of enforcement tactic.

- One reply to this complaint goes along the lines of, "hey, you know, if you weren't breaking the rules, you at least wouldn't be exposed to risk by this enforcement tactic, however lame it may be." That reply does have some sense to it: you have a responsibility to conduct your recruitment activities in accordance with state law and the rules of recruitment. I think that if your complaint lies in the fact that this particular enforcement tactic stands an awfully good chance of catching you, then you have a problem with how you run your parties, and you'd better shape up.

"You would think that he would support greeks," josh8o says, and that is true -- but what does that mean? That does not mean allowing prohibited activity to go on under his nose. I do think that other means of enforcement would be better, but you are not entitled to have the rules ignored or "enforced" in ways that are easily worked around.

- Another reply goes along the lines of, "ouch -- there are better ways to enforce these rules than to enlist people to sneak around," and I think that is right. Even if things are pretty bad, there may have been alternatives that would create less friction between the fraternities and the school.

Still, I don't think it's entrapment in either a legal sense (as my fellow JD IvySpice noted), and possibly not in a moral sense either. It's not nice, but it's not entrapment. Entrapment is when an enforcer of the rules tries and succeeds to persuade you to do something prohibited that you otherwise would never have done. There's no entrapment when a person who has the authority and responsibility to enforce the rules sets up a test to see what you do, and you break the rules or law because that's what you were going to do anyway. The part I'm most skeptical about is the use of actual students. But when you lay most of the groundwork yourself -- by having a party in conditions that you know are heavily regulated, and then having alcohol present, and then failing to take the responsibility that comes along with having alcohol (if it's permitted at all), I really don't think you have a whole lot of ground to complain when someone decides to test your system to make sure it works.

That's what the community is entitled to demand: that you sincerely and effectively follow the rules and implement a system that works. If alcohol is outright forbidden, don't have it. If it isn't forbidden, I recommend the following strategies:

(1) Have only one entrance door. Card everyone at the door. Know how to card effectively and how to spot a fake. (Someone from campus or city PD will probably be glad to train you.) Apply wristbands or unique stamps. Ensure that the people putting on wristbands know how to put them on so that they are most difficult to remove without breaking them, but don't cut off circulation.

(2) Lock the other doors and station people nearby so that people cannot let others sneak in. This is especially important if your party is BYOB or dry, as (underage) people may try to sneak in with their own alcohol.

(3) If you're serving, make sure you have an appropriate permit if one is necessary, and station a brother at every source of alcohol. Only this person may pour. He must check wristbands and must card again if the wristband is suspect.

This is not that hard.

My thoughts on the choice of tactic -- yes, it's probably overly aggressive, but I don't know what the situation is on your campus. Yes, it's very divisive and probably a bad political decision, but I don't know what approaches to enforcement have been tried before.

If you're upset because someone who has supported you in the past is trying what seems like a dirty tactic without trying anything else first, then I concur. They should have tried other methods. But I don't agree so easily if what you really want is to get away with serving alcohol when it is prohibited.

You might be able to negotiate to have a different enforcement tactic tried, as long as you don't have as your goal a tactic that will still let you serve alcohol in violation of the rules. They want something that will genuinely let them stop prohibited alcohol use, and you'd better be ready to offer them something that will do that.

By the way, I'll be explicit about my take on the alcohol issue that underlies all of this. I think the uniform drinking age has some silly effects, but I do believe that it should be enforced at fraternity parties, and I am a strong supporter of strict dry recruitment.