It's 2 a.m. on a Friday night in a college town. You walk into a house party with over 200 people present. There are giant coolers filled with alcoholic concoctions that have questionable names, like Venom and Pink Panty Dropper. You see freshmen working on their fifth cup of poison because they don't know that the punch always kicks in after you're a few cups in. You see some guy passed out on the couch, and his face is covered in more sharpie than a girls' bathroom stall. You walk out onto the back porch, right as you hear a belligerently drunk guy yell, “Hold my beer! Watch this!" and see him skateboard off the roof of the house in an attempt to land on a mattress a few feet away. He comes short by a few feet and everyone rushes to check on him. He needs to be taken to a hospital, but everyone is intoxicated; there appears to be no one capable of driving, and no one is prepared to deal with the situation.
Welcome to the college house party. Not that I don't appreciate a good and rowdy house party, but they come with their risks. My prediction is that a college town without bars will be a college town with more house parties. I'm here to explain the real reason why a college town needs bars.
Let me set you straight right away. I am not saying that all college students party or drink. I am not saying that I approve or disapprove of drinking under age. What I am saying, however, is that where there is a will, there is a way. If college students want to drink, they will.
College is widely known in America to be a place of learning, but also of fun and debauchery with friends. With this comes the unavoidable presence of underage drinking, and drinking in general. Like I said, not everyone drinks, but a lot of people do. In most places, it's part of the college culture.
Where there is an underage freshman trying to get alcohol, there is most likely a poor college junior or senior willing to get an extra $10 for picking up a six-pack of beer, or a handle of liquor. The reality is that drinking will happen. So instead of tirelessly (and futilely) trying to prevent it, why not moderate it so it isn't such a huge risk?
This is where bars that allow 18 and up come into the picture. A responsibly run bar is such a better facility for college partying than anywhere else. Shutting down bars or making them 21-and-up creates a larger problem. We can whine about lowering the drinking age, but the argument is old. Everyone knows the arguments for and against. So, instead, let's focus on what's more realistic.
Bars are required to have liability insurance. This means that in the case of an emergency, there will be some responsibility taken. On top of that, when is the last time you saw someone skateboard off the roof of a bar? A responsible bar will have bouncers and other staff who are sober, in the case of an emergency. While accidents happen all the time, at least the risk is reduced. Responsible bar management will monitor consumption and cut off patrons that are clearly too intoxicated, or who are clearly distributing drinks to underage drinkers.
Bars also regulate what kind of alcohol you're consuming. While you may not be getting top-shelf alcohol, you can be sure of what is going in your drink. Who knows what is in the mystery punch of the night? I've heard horror stories from my dad's college days where at the end of the night, they emptied the drink coolers after a house party and found a pair of shoes inside. Everyone that night consumed cheap alcohol and someone's foot fungus. How beautiful is that?
Additionally, law enforcement has a much better chance of successfully monitoring drinking activities if the vast majority of people are in central locations. House parties can be hard to track down if they are in random locations, or far from main roads. If more people are at bars, then law enforcement officers have a better idea of where to focus, and can do a better job of protecting people. (Which is the actual purpose of police: to protect the people. But, hey, different article for a different day.)
College kids, no matter the age or the laws, are going to find a way to drink if they want to. It's inevitable. Ignoring it, or trying to make it harder, won't make it go away; it will just make people get more creative with their partying. So at the end of the day, pressuring bars into closing their doors is probably the worst mistake lawmakers can make when it comes to protecting their party-loving constituents. Regulation is a much safer way to approach the issue.
