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A Madison neighborhood association presented strategic plans Thursday to increase prices and taxes on alcoholic beverages.
The Alcohol Issues Committee of Capitol Neighborhoods, Inc., hopes to help curb what they see as excessive drinking issues facing the downtown area. On Thursday, they delivered a research-based presentation on alcohol prevention strategies to city residents, officials, business owners and University of Wisconsin staff.
Along with increasing prices and taxes, CNI members Rich Brown and John Scherpelz proposed better enforcement of drinking laws and screening processes for IDs.
By January 2009, CNI would also like to see the numbers double for underage drinking citations issued by Madison and UW Police and twice as many students disciplined by UW for drinking infractions in residence halls.
�Underage individuals seem to believe that they are not under any legal risk for drinking or for having a fake ID, and in downtown Madison and on campus the largest underage drinking is having little deterrent effect,� Brown said.
The committee proposed requiring 50 percent of downtown bars to use electric scanners for IDs after 10 p.m. and all UW facilities to use them by January 2009.
According to the committee, Wisconsin�s beer tax is the second-lowest in the country, at 0.6 cents on a 12-ounce bottle of beer. The committee proposed substantially increasing the tax and alcohol prices downtown by 20 percent by 2009.
�It�s pretty laughable that beer tax has not been increased in the state in 40 years,� City Council President Mike Verveer, District 4, said. �But, I�m wary of the city activity working to increase the price of drinking downtown.�
Former alcohol policy coordinator for Madison and current mayoral aide, Joel Plant, said he has a three-tiered approach to the city�s alcohol problems: enforcement, education and environment.
�When we talk about environment, we are talking about everything from individual licensed establishments to small apartment parties to the city as a whole,� Plant said. �The key to environmental approach is to identify the authority figures for each environment and put them in charge.�
Katherine Plominski, the city�s new alcohol policy coordinator, said three months into the position that she already has 23 goals for the 2008-09 year, such as increasing late-night transportation and including a student on the Alcohol License Committee.
Dawn Crim, acting special assistant to the chancellor for communication relations, spoke at the meeting about the numerous ways UW reaches out to students about alcohol, adding that UW offers a large amount of nonalcoholic events every year, notably the All-Campus Party celebration each spring.
Crim said students are involved with how to handle alcohol policies.
�There are many conversations with students about drinking that are already underway, and those will continue,� Crim added.
According to Richard Lyshek, owner of Ram Head, 303 N. Henry St., students out late at night actually help to keep the downtown area safe.
�I would not feel safe walking home at three in the morning if I didn�t know that there were thousands � literally, thousands � of law-abiding students,� Lyshek said. �The only thing they may have done that is illegal for the night is that they drank even though they were only 20, God forbid.�
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As an older (37) Downtown resident, I love to get shit faced drunk, sneek into the student highrises and pee in the elevators.
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I love how they think they can actually contriol people’s behavior by increasing the price of alcohol. This association will have no impact on changing drinking. They are fools.
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Yeah, why can’t you damn kids keep it down? We’re paying good money to live in our high-rise condos, and we have to hear your drunken partying? When I was your age, we respected our elders and only drank down at the quarry or at the square dance, and even there were chaperones. You should all be in bed by ten anyhow, especially on school nights. And put a hat on, fer chrissakes, it’s cold out!
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So more drunk kids actually makes things safer? Wow, who’d a thunk.
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Anonymous 8:54 AM says: ” love how they think they can actually contriol people’s behavior by increasing the price of alcohol. This association will have no impact on changing drinking. They are fools.”
-Believe it or not, increasing the price of alcohol will cause students to drink less. Think about it- if you’re at a bar, and the price of a beer is $2, you buy it, right? But what if it’s $6? Even if you were willing to pay for one or two, you’ll run out of money much faster paying $6 a beer instead of $2.
It’s unlikely that the proposed increase will be that high, but even if it isn’t, it will cause students to drink less. Whether that’s a good thing or not is a different matter.
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11:30 … I want to know what bar you’re finding $2 beers at.
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If prices in bars go up, people stop drinking at bars, not stop drinking. If Madison jacks the price in liquor stores, people by from Middleton, Town of Burke, etc. Each level of price restriction creates a more dangerous environment and does little to discourage drinking.
Sadly, the city discussion is being dominated by CNI which is a collection of self-appointed retired anti-democratic busybodies who (after spending the last 20 or so years being so controlling that their kids have fled Madison and left them with an empty nest and having retired have no subordinates to dominate) now seek to impose their hypocritical, puritan lifestyle on the downtown. Ledell Zellers, Fred Mohs and the neo-prohibitionists should be run out of town.
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Raising the price of alcohol in bars will lead to the same behavior exhibited by all college students who are a little short on cash. You drink more before you go out to have a good buzz beforehand. (Unless this proposed series of mandates will increase the price of 1.75s of Smirnoff at Woodman’s). Oh, and it won’t affect the drinking habits of those whose parents fund their lifestyles. This will be just another way the kids of low to mid-low income families are being priced out!
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If the prices of alcohol increase at the bar, I will drink more during the preparty. If the prices of alcohol increase at the liquor store, I will buy less food at the grocery store.
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If prices in bars go up, people will move to house parties, not stop drinking outright. Or start smoking weed. Drinking is obviously a problem at Madison, but it’s not going to be stopped like this.
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This is absolutely ridiculous. Who cares if people are drunk, its not like anyone is driving. They are just trying to get an extra buck of the already broke students because they KNOW it won’t cut down on any alcohol sales.
That last quote sums it up best:
�I would not feel safe walking home at three in the morning if I didn�t know that there were thousands � literally, thousands � of law-abiding students,� Lyshek said. �The only thing they may have done that is illegal for the night is that they drank even though they were only 20, God forbid.�
Think about it, 20 years old. I think at 20 most people can decide what is best for them. We are all already living on our own (already getting priced gouged by the Madison slum lords…) and managing just fine. Who does me getting drunk hurt? Me? I can look out for myself just fine, thank you. Sure maybe there might be a higher occurrence of fights or vandalism, but whose to say that those are caused by underage kids?
And speaking of the people who ARE legally 21, why should they get penalized for absolutely nothing?
I am of the opinion that all you should need to drink is a high school diploma, and abolish drinking ages all together. If you think about it, it really makes a lot of sense.
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Please raise the prices on alcohol…the girl getting raped on observatory between liz waters and the other lakeshore dorms is just a small price we have to pay, don’t worry about her. I think that if we stop underage drinking, the world’s problems would be minimal. Poor people suck too, so the people in the army fighting for our freedom deserve to risk their lives at young ages, but when they come home don’t celebrate w/ champagne, cuz they can’t have that. Everybody who drinks and drives is underage, therefore we should charge about infinity dollars to control shit on the freeways. It’d be cool if my tuition paid for my education, and not cops to arrest me for drinking underage.
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Also, to anyone old commenting on this article…the drinking age was 18 when you were kids, therefore anybody in college was able to drink. You may be thinking about high school, when kids would sneak to the quarry/woods to drink…P.S. they still do that…
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They say that they would like to include a student on the Alcohol License Committee, yet the city just passed a resolution to decrease the density of liquor license holding places downtown. Therefore this new student position would be of no interest to any student because any new bars would have to be located away from campus.
As for this tax, the article said that a substantial raise would be 20 percent. This will drive students away from the bars where the managers and owners have a responsibility to not over-serve their guests, and towards the house parties where the overall atmosphere encourages unsafe amounts of drinking.
The real question is: Do you want to keep students safe from the dangers of alcohol, or do you want to bust them for not toeing the line?
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As long as I still get to pee in elevators!