In an addendum to the Madison City Council meeting Monday night, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, proposed an initiative to increase fines for alcohol-related offenses.
Fines to be increased include tickets for disorderly conduct, noise violations, public urination, throwing projectiles and dispensing alcohol without a license.
Verveer said the tickets are an attempt to ease the costs of police overtime fees for events like Halloween and the Mifflin Street Block Party.
\I think the city taxpayers as a whole, including the 41,000 UW students in Madison, should not be stuck paying the over $100,000 Madison Police Department overtime bill for State Street Halloween weekend,"" Verveer said. ""By increasing these fines, assuming we issue relatively the same number of fines we issued last year, all-every penny-of the police overtime costs would be paid for by those citations.""
The proposal lists several fine increases, many of which have not been raised in more than a decade. Noise violations would increase from $102 to $164, possessing open intoxicants on city streets would rise from $102 to $288, dispensing alcohol without a license would increase from $350 to $660 and disorderly conduct would jump from $164 to $412.
Pending a passing vote in the Board of Estimates, the council will vote on the proposal Oct. 5, well before Halloween, which Ald. Paul Skidmore, District 9, cited as the driving force.
Verveer said he felt most council members had no oppositions to the proposal and it would pass through without debate.
Skidmore said while he supported the proposal, he had reservations on the strength of its effect on binge drinking.
""I think what it's going to do is increase the number of fines that are levied. But do I think its going to stop drinking? No,"" Skidmore said.
""I think the intent is good, but I'm not sure what it's going to do or what good its going to have. ... You're treating the symptom, not the cause,"" he said.
Gus Wiedenhoeft, a UW-Madison freshman, said he felt the fines might have a long-term effect on binge drinking.
""To deter at first, [the fines] don't make a difference, but once it applies to them, it will,"" Wiedenhoeft said. ""[Drinking] is always going to happen because people love to do it, but if the fines are big enough and known to the students-with tight pocketbooks-it'll make a difference.\
