Statesboro vs GA Southern boozers

[hoosier]

(Today's story says the city has banned happy hours, free drinks, pitchers for one person, etc.)

College town tries to cork flow of booze
Andrea Jones - Staff
Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Statesboro --- The trembling Georgia Southern University freshman arrived an hour late for Laura Milner's English composition class this summer.

Tearful and smelling of alcohol, the 18-year-old metro Atlanta native told Milner she'd blacked out after a night of downing free liquor at Ladies Night at a local dance club. Had she been raped? Sexually assaulted? She didn't know. She couldn't remember.

Shocked, Milner took the student to the counseling center and, soon after, started asking questions around campus.

In the months since, the professor's quest for answers has put binge drinking on the front burner at this school of 16,000, pitting local officials and university administrators against college students, many of whom insist they are mature enough to make their own decisions about alcohol. At the center of the storm? A local politician who owns two of the most controversial establishments in town.

Today, Statesboro's City Council will vote on stringent new amendments to the local alcohol ordinance that include banning happy hours and drink specials at all restaurants and limiting to one per customer at a time the number of drinks that can be ordered.

'Dangerous drinking'

This is not the first time students and city officials have clashed over alcohol policies in Statesboro. The city began allowing liquor by the drink less than 10 years ago, and the surrounding county of Bulloch still bans liquor sales in stores.

Nancy Waters, chairwoman of Statesboro's alcohol control board, which drafted the amendments, said the city owes the changes to Georgia Southern parents --- many of whom are from metro Atlanta --- who expect that their children will be protected when they drop them off at school.

"The goal is to curb this kind of dangerous drinking," Waters said. "Someone has to look out for students."

Waters said the board did not set out to punish law-abiding restaurants, and in a meeting last week recommended that happy hours be allowed from 5 to 7 p.m. That option will be considered at today's council meeting in addition to the board's original proposal for a total ban on happy hours.

'Date rape night'

The push to change Statesboro's alcohol policies began in earnest in September, after Milner showed a standing-room crowd at a City Council meeting poster-sized pictures from "Ladies Lock-Up" night at the Woodin Nikel, the club where her student blacked out.

A bartender wearing a black contraption on his back resembling a giant bug sprayer funneled neon-green liquor directly into students' mouths. Milner, who went to the club with a fellow professor and two students, said she saw underaged freshmen, including some of her own students, drinking. Some were chugging alcohol as club employees chanted and encouraged them to drink more. The women inside drank free liquor for two hours before the doors opened at 11 p.m. to a line of men waiting to pay a cover charge to get inside.

"Some students referred to it as 'date rape' night," Milner said. "It was unbelievable."

The owner of the club? William Britt, a 30-year-old Georgia Southern graduate and member of the City Council.

The city has since yanked Britt's alcohol license at Woodin Nikel and at Legends, another establishment he owns near campus, for failing to prove at least half his profits came from food, a requirement for all Statesboro restaurants with liquor licenses. The alcohol board is also auditing seven other establishments to make sure they meet the 50/50 requirement, Waters said. So far, only one has turned in paperwork.

Britt said the city just hasn't accepted the fact that Statesboro is a college town and that students like to have a good time.

"If you took the college out of Statesboro, there'd be nothing left," he said. "Instead of allowing business owners to address issues, they're just making decisions that hurt everybody."

Amendment vote tabled

Britt said his staff checked IDs and used wristbands to separate the over-21 partiers from the underage ones.

"But if someone buys a drink and hands it to someone who is underage, it's very difficult to catch them," he said.

After the revelations at the September meeting, the alcohol board made its recommendations for amending the city's ordinance. The City Council was scheduled to vote on the amendments at its October meeting but tabled action after hundreds of students and townspeople showed up to voice their opinions.

Britt will be banned from participating in today's discussion and vote because of a potential conflict of interest, said George Wood, Statesboro's city manager.

Paul Ferguson, director of Georgia Southern's Health Services, said he's not out to ruin anybody's good time. But college students --- especially freshmen away from home for the first time --- don't always make the best choices.

"We have an obligation to take care of them and protect them," Ferguson said.

In recent years, Georgia Southern has seen a major influx of students from Atlanta. Now, 40 percent of students on the campus, which boasts white-columned brick buildings set amid rolling hills, hail from the metro area.

Georgia Southern has long had a party-school reputation. The university recently received a grant from the state Office of Highway Safety for an alcohol education program and seed money to start a safe driving program that would offer students rides home from local establishments.

Waters said the support of Georgia Southern's senior administrators has been a key to the fight to curb drinking. The university's attorney, Lee Davis, spoke in favor of the amendments at the October board meeting.

"We have never had an administration so committed," Waters said.

Students oppose changes

Ferguson, who has been at Georgia Southern for about a year and a half, is a fatherly figure around campus. Student workers in the health clinic routinely stop him in the hall for a chat, a hug, a handshake or a request to borrow his minivan for the weekend.

Last month, he spent six hours on a Sunday matching student health reports with establishments the students had been to earlier in the night. Of three reported sexual assaults from July to October, all were underaged women who had reported alcohol abuse at the Woodin Nikel. Of the seven concussions, six had been drinking at either the Woodin Nikel or at Legends, and five of those were underaged.

"You can have all the anecdotal evidence in the world, but the numbers don't lie," he said. "This was just plain wrong."

Ferguson said shutting down those two clubs was the first step to curb binge drinking. Some students say they will just turn to more house parties, but Ferguson said the pressures to drink hard liquor without eating tend to be less in those situations. The key, he added, is educating students more to avoid dangerous behavior when they drink.

Meanwhile, hundreds of students have signed a petition opposing the additional alcohol amendments. Georgia Southern senior Nathan Queen, the general manager of Retriever's, another popular bar and grill across from campus, has led the effort. Queen offers drink specials and happy hours at his restaurant and said the amendments are too strict and that the city should just enforce its existing ordinances instead of creating more.

"Why should a bunch of 50-year-olds be deciding what 18- to 24-year-olds need to do?" he asked. "It's not fair."

The students who were lined up Thursday night outside Retriever's in flashy tank tops, ball caps and fashionable jeans tended to agree.

Katie Rushing, a 21-year-old pre-pharmacy major from Statesboro, sipped on a free rum and Coke at a table with her friends. It was Ladies Night, and women paid a $5 cover for a plastic cup they could refill with liquor drinks until 11.

"If one bar messed up, that doesn't mean everybody should get punished," she said. "If people want to drink, they're going to no matter what."

INCIDENT REPORT
Paul Ferguson, Georgia Southern's director of health services, compiled student health issues reported to Health Services and their relation to the bars around campus. These figures are from July 1 to Oct. 17, 2005.
Concussions: 7 total; 6 were the result of alcohol abuse at either Woodin Nikel or Legends, 5 were underaged, 2 female
Nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, gastroenteritis, myalgia: 179 total; 83 were alcohol-abuse related; of those, 67 at Woodin Nikel or Legends, 56 underaged, 51 female with 49 reporting alcohol abuse at Woodin Nikel
Reported sexual abuse: 3 total, all reported alcohol abuse at Woodin Nikel, all underaged
*For previous year sexual assaults, 13 total female patients, 10 reported alcohol abuse, 9 of those at Woodin Nikel

[NebraskaDelt]

According to the article, it seems like they have more of a problem with underage drinking than binge drinking. When I went to school we had one bar which allowed minors to enter, but the areas where minors could go were segregated from those who were able to drink. No alcohol was allowed where the minors could go (ie: dance floor, bathrooms, pool table, etc).

This city councilman should not be on the council. It's pretty evident he doesn't know how to run his own business let alone the city.

Once again people are going to pour taxpayer money for a survey or research for something we already know. College students drink alcohol. Maybe one day we will learn and then be able to come to a good conclusion.

[WCUgirl]

Originally posted by NebraskaDelt
This city councilman should not be on the council. It's pretty evident he doesn't know how to run his own business let alone the city.

In small towns such as this, it's not uncommon to have the popular college boy who thinks it would be cool to run for public office campaign on campus and gets all the college kids to get out and vote for him.

[preciousjeni]

Originally posted by NebraskaDelt
According to the article, it seems like they have more of a problem with underage drinking than binge drinking.

You took the words out of my mouth.

[AOIIBrandi]

Originally posted by AXiD670
In small towns such as this, it's not uncommon to have the popular college boy who thinks it would be cool to run for public office campaign on campus and gets all the college kids to get out and vote for him.

Let's just say there are lots of questions as to how he ever got elected, and I know a lot of people who are secretly relieved that the bars have been shut down, for personal reasons regarding "the councilman", not the students who frequented, or the employees who worked at the establishments.

And yes, Statesboro has a problem with underage drinking, not binge drinking. They got liquor by the drink the semester I left before that it was beer and wine only. The same problems existed then that do now. Southern is in rural south Georgia very much in the middle of the Bible Belt, unfortunately there is a lot of push and pull between the people affiliated with the college and the people who are not. There are people there who would just as soon see the college go away. They are the same people who will not let the college hold night games (only have like 1-2 a year) and actually get use out of the millions of dollars they spent on the lights for the stadiums. It's a sad situation that I hope will one day be resolved.

[hoosier]

Maybe somebody will know:

Is the KA from GSU who was on Real World Paris still in Statesboro, and does he still own bars there? Are they student-type bars?

[AGDLynn]

If you are talking about Ace, I know that he owns Rumrunners in Carrollton where West Georgia is.

[FloridaTish]

Personally, I applaud the decision to try and curb both underage and binge drinking. When I was a student at Southern in the early 90's it was exactly the same as it was described in the article. I was never carded at any of the bars and I can remember (foggily) the ladies nights at the Collegiate, Blind Willies, Thursdays/Legends and the Country Club where the girls drank 1 cent draft or 50 cent pitchers, as many as you wanted at a time. The girls would be inside for an hour with tables covered in plastic cups filled with beer while the guys were lined up like wolves ready to pounce on a flock of drunk sheep. Looking back it was a disaster in the making and I can beleive I got sucked into that whole party till you puke mentality that is, has always been and more than likely will always be, the "social life" at Georgia Southern.

Additionally, having had one of my best friends raped while at Legends on one of those "Ladies Nights" doesn't help my perception. Her rapist tried to use the fact that she was there drinking while underage as a justification, and that he "thought she wanted it".

According to the article, it seems like they have more of a problem with underage drinking than binge drinking

Unfortunately, from my experience, underage drinking and binge drinking go hand in hand...at least in Statesboro. There is NOTHING to do in that town except drink and unfortunately, the bars there have fostered the binge drinking mentality over the last decade and a 1/2. By having these promotions, they encourage the rapid consumption of alcohol under the guise of "Ladies Night", knowing full well that they will have a lot of guys just waiting to get in there, drink and pick up chicks. It's a money maker. Drunk girls equal lots of guys willing to pay $5 covers and drink beer all night with the hopes of getting laid.

When I was 18-23, I thought I knew it all. I had the mentality of "No one should be able to tell me how much I can or can't drink! I was an adult, damnit, in college and responsible for my own actions". Unfortunately, so many of these students are away from home for the first time and are innundated with decisions and situations that they really have never had to face before. They are in a new place, trying to fit in and make friends and meet a boyfriend. A lot of them come to the decision that drinking is OK and will help them loosen up and be more social. The choices made aren't always the best ones and as a result, a lot of bad things can happen...be it date rape, alcohol poisioning (I knew 5 friends who had to go to the hospital for that) or DUI.

I wasn't an angel and I know that I'm being hypocritical. However, I think that if there had been more stringent laws on the books regarding "drink specials", "ladies night" and the like, there would be a dramatic decrease in the amount of alcohol related problems on campus. When I was there, GSU was a breeding ground for future alcoholics...

Yes, it may suck for the college students there who drink responsibily and feel as if they are being penalized for actions of others who can't control themselves, but if they're responsible drinkers to begin with, the ending of ladies nights or happy hours would be no major loss to them.

AS for the carding and the wrist bands, they used the exact same "spin" when they were trying to get alcohol by the glass inititives passed in the early 90's.

Britt said his staff checked IDs and used wristbands to separate the over-21 partiers from the underage ones.

I'm sorry but I can't stop laughing about that last comment above....I know people who have recently graduated and after hearing their stories, it's still the same shit, different year. Yes, they may check ID's, but Suzie Phi Mu could show an ID stating she's a 65 year old black man and they'd still slap a wrist band on her arm... (Just using Suzie Phi Mu as an example, not in a negative way, though)

I guess my viewpoints have changed over the years, but it really is sad how rampant alcohol abuse is at GSU, by both legal and underage drinkers...

Ok...I'm stepping of my soapbox now!

[AOIIBrandi]

Originally posted by hoosier
Maybe somebody will know:

Is the KA from GSU who was on Real World Paris still in Statesboro, and does he still own bars there? Are they student-type bars?

Yes Ace, the KA in question, co-owns the bars mentioned in the article (Wooden Nikel and Legends) with Will Britt.

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by FloridaTish

When I was 18-23, I thought I knew it all. I had the mentality of "No one should be able to tell me how much I can or can't drink! I was an adult, damnit, in college and responsible for my own actions". Unfortunately, so many of these students are away from home for the first time and are innundated with decisions and situations that they really have never had to face before. They are in a new place, trying to fit in and make friends and meet a boyfriend. A lot of them come to the decision that drinking is OK and will help them loosen up and be more social. The choices made aren't always the best ones and as a result, a lot of bad things can happen...be it date rape, alcohol poisioning (I knew 5 friends who had to go to the hospital for that) or DUI.

Doesn’t matter. Cant have your cake and eat it too. Either people are adults at 18 and can vote and fight for the country and create debt and go to jail as an adult, and face the responsibilities of their actions, or they aren’t adults and you don’t make/let them have the responsibilities. Its not a perfect world, but its like education funding, or the immigration problem, or crime. THERE IS NO PERFECT SOLUTION. The vast majorities of students will make responsible choices. Some wont. You want to take everyone’s rights away because a few cant handle theirs? But we as Greeks are the first to be all up in arms when one makes us look bad and we all get painted with a broad brush. Double standard much?

I say enforce the laws as they exist, get the state Alcohol control board in there doing some undercover work, giving MIP's by the dozen, fine the shit outta the bartenders/owners who get caught providing alcohol to minors. Hit everyone in their pocketbooks and its will end right quick. That and a few good negligence lawsuits would do the trick. Also end the free alcohol deal. That’s just trouble in the works and have the university work to clean up its image. Southwest Texas State (Now just Texas State) was the party school in the state in the 80's and early 90's. The school decided it had had enough and wanted to improve its image. They did. You can still have a good time there, but its not known for parties and it recruits a different kind of student now.

[FloridaTish]

I say enforce the laws as they exist, get the state Alcohol control board in there doing some undercover work, giving MIP's by the dozen, fine the shit outta the bartenders/owners who get caught providing alcohol to minors. Hit everyone in their pocketbooks and its will end right quick.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I think it's not necessacarily as simple as that. They (Bulloch County sherrifs, Statesboro Police, ATF, etc...) should have been enforcing the laws all along. It's not like this is something that just sprung up over the last couple of years. It was like this during the 80's, the 90's and unless things are done, it will continue.

What is the solution? I agree that that there needs to be an image overhaul and make it seem not so much like a party school that anyone can get into...I know they have raised their academic standards considerably, but the party image still sticks. It's a shame that an educational institution gets branded with a negative stigma due to factors beyond the college's control (bars and business surrounding campus).

However, it is my firm belief that these $5 bottomless cup drink specials and the like are COMPLETELY unnecessary, regardless if you are of legal age and a responsible drinker. It blatantly encourages binge drinking among everyone, not just those who don't have as much experience or control...especially when they use these "specials" during a structured time frame (Ladies drink free from 8:00 to 10:00). Are these really necessary?

There needs to be more stringent enforcement of underage drinking laws in Statesboro. I know this was 15 years ago, but the first night I got to school, myself and 20 of my new friends from my dorm walked to the nearest campus bar/club and proceeded to celebrate our new found freedom and college futures with a bunch of pitchers of beer. Not a single one of us was carded or given a second glance. One of my friends younger sisters started there in 2000 and her story about her first night at Southern was practically a verbatim repeat of mine, just with different bars mentioned. She's was a normal kid, not some hard core party girl, but someone on her own in a new environment and trying new things. We know that even the most "responsible" young adults can be easily influnced by their peers and although being 18 might be old enough to vote and die for your country, hitting that age mark doesn't suddenly give you immediate clarity and the wisdom of the ages. It's a very impressionable age.

I'm not trying to be an old fart, but I just remember from my first hand experience. Looking back, I wish I had initially gone to a different school...one with a less party, party atmosphere. It wasn't until I left college to enter the business world for a few years, that I then went back to college and was able to realize my full potential.

I just hate to think that there are new freshman just like me and my former classmates who are going to potentially get sucked into that drinking/party mentality...if the enticement to binge drink is eliminated, that is a step in the right direction.

Oh my god...I just realized I've turned into my mother!

[WCUgirl]

Originally posted by FloridaTish


Oh my god...I just realized I've turned into my mother!

Yeah, it does sneak up on you, doesn't it?

[AOIIBrandi]

How are ladies drink free specials, happy hours, allowing people to order more than 1 drink, or get a pitcher by themselves in Statesboro any different than in Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, LA, NY....? The only real difference is the town is smaller. The laws in Statesboro have always been stricter than anywhere else I have ever lived (and I have lived in 7 different cities in the last 8 years). They don't need new laws they need to enforce the ones they already have. There is already a law there that anyone purchasing alcohol must be ID'd no matter the age of the person. This went into effect at the same time they passed liquor by the drink (8 years ago). My husband's 84 year old grandmother was carded at the Longhorn's there a couple of months ago.

I am not going to say that underage and binge drinking is not a problem in Statesboro. I and my friends who were there in the mid 90s partied pretty hard to say the least. Guess what, none of us turned out to be bums we all have rather high paying jobs a few that are pretty high profile. We are all greek, maybe that helped? I do not regret making the choice to go the "party school" - I had other options. In fact I loved every minute of my college experience and would not trade it for the world. It's where I met my husband, my best friends, and my sisters.

The University has come a long way in overhauling their reputation. They are no longer listed in Playboy or any other publication as a top party school as they were in the late 80s, early 90s. They have moved to a more selective admissions process. They have several degree programs that they are well known for in those industries.

[Eclipse]

Originally posted by AOIIBrandi
How are ladies drink free specials, happy hours, allowing people to order more than 1 drink, or get a pitcher by themselves in Statesboro any different than in Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, LA, NY....? The only real difference is the town is smaller. The

Do they still have 2 for 1 specials in Atlanta? I thought they stopped that back in the late 80s (when I was in college)?

[AOIIBrandi]

Originally posted by Eclipse
Do they still have 2 for 1 specials in Atlanta? I thought they stopped that back in the late 80s (when I was in college)?

I could be wrong, but I think the Outback had them when I was there a couple of months ago. I don't really follow the specials anymore, I just get what I want.