Pi Beta Phi Party with Underage Drinking at Southern Cal (USC)

[exlurker]

A Pi Phi party held at a third-party vendor's location was busted by police due to underage drinking, according to the Daily Trojan. Excerpts from the article:

. . . an undercover operation by Alcoholic Beverage Control . . . found numerous incidents of underage drinking at a Pi Beta Phi sorority invite on Feb. 25.

The incident has also prompted the Panhellenic Council to consider future changes in how sorority invites are run.

The event, which was held at the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood, was shut down early around 11:30 p.m. by hotel management, and students were sent home.

A male student was cited for purchasing alcohol for a minor, two female students were cited for false IDs and underage drinking, and a hotel bartender was cited for serving alcohol to minors. The students and bartender were released on condition of appearing in court.

Hotel managers declined to comment.

Five plainclothes officers attended the event and found students passed out on the floor from excessive drinking of alcohol, said Judy Matty, district administrator for ABC special operations.

"That really underscores the situation," she said. "It means they had people getting on the bus (to the venue) already drunk."

. . . "We found out from people (who attended the invite)," she said. "It wasn't a big secret."

Beth Saul, the adviser for the Panhellenic Council and director of parent programs, would not say if any action by the university administration would be taken against Pi Beta Phi.

Sheroum Kim, president of PHC and member of Pi Beta Phi, said the council had not met yet to decide how to respond.

But Aimee Anderson, the sorority's president, said Saul would be meeting with Panhellenic sororities soon to create a plan to prevent future incidents. . . .

The entire article is at

http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/2005...e-882202.shtml

[mmcat]

oopsie...
underage drinking remains just that.
sorry for them, i hope they get it worked out.

[exlurker]

Originally posted by mmcat
oopsie...
underage drinking remains just that.
sorry for them, i hope they get it worked out.

I hope they get it worked out, too. Over the last several months we've seen several instances of this kind of thing -- third-party vendors who allow underage drinking, or who have trouble with crowd control. As I recall there was a problem at the University of Kansas, where Panhellenic decided to agree not to use a certain problem vendor (and maybe agreed not to go to anyone's events when that vendor was used? -- not sure). Then there wwas a pretty widely reported story of problems in Colorado with a Kappa - Phi Tau event where there were allegations of underage drinking.
Makes planning events tough when you're trying to follow rules and your vendor doesn't do a good job on their end of it.
(And pre-partying doesn't help things, either. )

[texas*princess]

while i don't think it was very smart for the vendor to serve minors, i don't think it was smart of the sorority members to use fake ids, or to pre-party to a point where they are passing out at their own event.

[shadokat]

It sounds to me as if the sorority was following their rules of using a third party vendor. If students were using fake IDs and getting alcohol for minors, that's on the vendor, not the sorority, as it's their establishment, and they are required to run it according to the law.

The pre-party thing is a whole nother ball game, and if members are doing it before the event to the point their are passing out at their party, there's a definite alcohol problem present...

Just some thougths...