If the Alcohol License Review Committee adopts its Comprehensive Alcohol Issues Report tomorrow night, drink specials will virtually end.
Furthermore, unclear references to \heightened attention to address improper activities"" at house parties leave everything about the committee's goals for safer drinking to the imagination.
The vague and over-reaching recommendations of the report are disconcerting. Without proper student attention at the ALRC meeting Thursday, Madison City Council will take swift, comprehensive action on numerous drinking-related issues affecting students downtown.
To be fair, it does not specifically call for the return of Operation Sting, a house party-busting affair in which Madison Police Department officers went out undercover, breaking up parties and issuing exorbitant tickets to underage drinkers and their hosts. However, the coincidence of the commission report and construction of the Overture project indicate an inclination by the city to clean up downtown for appearances rather than safety.
Furthermore, while the threat of entertainment districts and drink-special bans have loomed from a distance until only recently, few roadblocks remain between the concept and the reality of stricter drinking regulation, particularly in the student districts the report carefully examines.
Frankly, the general student apathy on the subject will do nothing to prevent the report's adoption by the ALRC, and thereby, the council.
Only tomorrow's ALRC meeting and a May 7 city council meeting remain to offer student input on these wide-reaching recommendations. Only these meetings lie between concept and legislative action.
Give ALRC a piece of your mind at tomorrow's meeting. It will be held at 6:30 p.m. in Room 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Blvd.
