The Alcohol and Other Drugs Committee of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) has rejected a policy that would require students to register kegs and other common source containers of alcohol (such as punchbowls) prior to hosting a party where alcohol is to be served.
The registration proposal was spearheaded by Chair of the Policy and Enforcement Committee and Assistant Dean of Student Services Scott Backer and due to support from administrative members of that committee, the policy was approved and sent to the Alcohol and Other Drugs Committee. Students on the AOD Committee rejected the proposal and it was sent back to the Policy and Enforcement Subcommittee for revision. Currently no keg registration policy is in effect, but it continues to be an issue of contention between administrators and students on the Student Affairs Committee.
According to Backer, the policy would have a variety of positive effects.
“Students need to be aware of the liability that they assume by distributing alcohol, the risks that come along with not taking appropriate steps to ensure student safety and it would also create situations in which students hosting events would develop positive relationships with the Public Safety officers assigned to help them host events in compliance with the policy,” he wrote in an email to the Argus.
As a whole, Wesleyan students are opposed to policies that would require keg registration. A WSA poll of the student body was conducted which included the following statement: “An administrator has proposed a policy to mandate that students register their kegs and common sources of alcohol with Public Safety in advance of a social gathering.” The results showed that a clear majority (91%) of students disapproved of such a policy.
According to some WSA members, the proposed keg registration policy is part of the administration’s increasing efforts to enforce drug and alcohol violations. WSA President Mike Pernick ’10 believes that a keg registration policy would be unrealistic and unnecessary, especially because the policy would likely include a variety of burdensome requirements, such as deadlines by which the keg must be registered, a requirement that at least two hosts remain sober for the night, and limits on the number of people who can attend the party.
“A policy with so many hoops to jump through means that the SJB gets clogged up with party registration violations,” he said. “No one will respect the policy.”
Keg registration policies have been implemented at other universities, but there is no clear evidence that such policies reduce underage or unsafe drinking. Class representative of the Student Affairs Committee, Micah Feiring ’11, has researched the statistics regarding hospitalizations for alcohol poisoning and types of alcohol purchased at educational institutions with keg registration policies.
“At other schools, the result of a keg registration policy leads to increases in pre-gaming and hospitalization, and it also leads to increases in the purchasing of hard alcohol and thirty racks of beer,” he said. “Basically what it does is encourage a different kind of drinking, and the kind of drinking that it encourages is the most dangerous kind of drinking.”
The logic behind the pre-gaming argument is that a keg registration policy would discourage hosts from providing kegs at parties due to the paperwork involved. By this thinking, students would then pre-game (drink alcohol quickly in a short period of time before leaving for a party) because they would not expect to find beer at the party. Backer agrees that pre-gaming is an issue that should be addressed by the AOD, but he does not think a keg registration policy would cause an increase in pre-gaming activities
“No research that has been completed has shown that policy development has had a major impact on the prevalence or reduction of ‘pre-gaming’ type behaviors,” he wrote.
Is there a possibility that a keg registration policy will come into effect in the near future? No, says chair of the Student Affairs Committee Becky Weiss ’10, who opposes a keg registration policy.
“This is something that students overall disagree with,” she said. “It keeps coming back and getting shot down. The justification for the proposal is far outweighed by the reasons it should not exist.”
“I expect that the subcommittee will develop a recommendation that will be forwarded through appropriate channels for policy development,” Backer wrote, in regards to whether he thought the keg registration policy would be passed.
Pernick emphasizes the need to address student drinking in other ways.
The problem with the keg policy is that it forces students to find other ways to drink, such as pre-gaming,” he pointed out. “We want to have policies that promote safe drinking, and keg registration does the opposite of that.”
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