Boulevard Committee deemed worthless
After reading yesterday’s news story about the changes (notice I didn’t use the word “improvements”) to the Boulevard tailgating experience, I am astounded. Yet again, the leadership of this university has done a whole lot of nothing. These changes are illegal, absurd, unfair and downright dumb for a variety of reasons. First off, the Boulevard Committee has set a double standard for students. Secondly, there is another double standard for adult students and adult non-students. Thirdly, these changes don’t address the real “problem” as it is being called, and that is stopping underage drinking.
The new Boulevard rules create a situation that holds students to two different standards while they are drinking before a football game. Only students that are affiliated with an organization that rents a tent will have to check their alcohol with a bartender. They also are the only ones that are required to wear a wristband. There is no control set in place for students who are 21 but not involved in an organization that rents a tent. If the university wants to promote and encourage students to get involved on campus and be active in extracurricular activities, why are they holding those students to a different standard than the students who are not involved on campus?
According to the new Boulevard rules, you only have to wear a wristband if you want to be served at a student tent. Students that are not involved with organizations that have tents don’t go there to get alcohol; they bring their own. I would like to know why I, as a 21-year-old member of a Greek organization, have to wear a wristband and turn the alcohol I pay for with my own money over to a bartender; but 21-year-old students that are independent do not. The Boulevard Committee has screwed 21-year-olds involved on campus by setting a double standard.
According to the new rules, once the bartender service has stopped, a designated member of the organization that rents a tent must accompany the bartenders with the remaining alcohol to a vehicle parked by the tent, and the alcohol must be locked inside the vehicle and can’t be consumed on the Boulevard. This is not only dumb, but also illegal.
According to section 3.1(e) of the SMU Student Code of Conduct, “transportation and/or possession of more that 24 12-ounce bottles of beer or more than one quart of hard liquor, is considered prima facie evidence of intent to sell, and, therefore, evidence that the law has been violated. Alcoholic beverages that are transported into a dry area may not be transported back out of the dry area.” If an entire organization has to put their leftover alcohol in one car, that car owner could potentially be breaking the law regarding the amount of alcohol a person can possess. On top of that, if you have to put your leftover alcohol in a car and drive it from the Boulevard, you are running the risk of getting an open container violation if you have open bottles of liquor. If you live off campus and out of University Park, you are now also forced to break the law regarding removing alcohol from a dry area. You would think between members of Student Senate, the Athletic Department and the SMU Police (a.k.a. law enforcement), someone would have remembered that this new policy is in violation of the Student Code of Conduct, University Park laws and the laws of the State of Texas. Even if this wasn’t a legal issue, if I provide alcohol for tailgating for myself and I don’t drink it all, I want it back. I shouldn’t have to give it to someone else to take care of it and possibly “misplace” it. I’m a poor college student, and alcohol is expensive.
Another problem with this situation is that the focus of these new rules, stopping underage drinking, isn’t even addressed by this new rule. Freshmen are not allowed to be involved with Greeks until the spring semester, and they are the underage drinkers whom we are trying to stop. While some people will say that there are other organizations that rent tents for the Boulevard and the Greeks aren’t being demonized, let’s get real. The Greeks rent the majority of the tents, besides a couple of the church groups, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have communion wine, let alone beer and liquor, at the Wesley tent.
On top of all that, it’s not even a new rule. By the end of the football season last year, 21-year-olds had to have their IDs checked at a station and get a stamp, and the tents had bartenders. I’m glad our trusted school officials had to work long and hard to come up with these “new and improved” rules that really aren’t new or improved.
Another double standard that has been set is between adult students and adult alumni. The new rules don’t apply to the tents that are rented by the alumni and other non-student groups on the south end of the Boulevard. Why don’t those people have to get wristbands? Alumni groups should have the same rules set on them at their tents as the students groups do. But you won’t see that happen because the school will do anything to not get the alumni upset.
The Boulevard Committee has done nothing to prevent underage drinking, but they have done a whole lot to make legal drinking by 21-year-old Greeks a huge hassle.
According to the handout “Boulevard Improvements for 2005,” released by The Boulevard Committee, “The Boulevard Committee … met several times over a four-month time frame to create a new solution for student organizations to serve alcohol on The Boulevard that will comply with Texas Law.” I’m glad that under the pressure of the TABC, in four months, student representatives, school administrators and the SMU police could not come up with any new ideas for student organizations to have alcohol at their tents. They did however spend time deciding to give the groups skirted tables “to prevent unsightly large piles of beer cases.”
The committee also has done absolutely nothing to address the situation of independent students providing alcohol to minors. While I imagine this is not as prevalent of a problem as the Greeks providing to minors, The Boulevard Committee should have set a standard and made clear rules to handle that situation. I guess they were too busy coming up with a way to get students arrested and deciding what color skirts to get for the tables.
Also in the handout, “TABC then issued a warning to the SMU administration to create new policies to prevent underage drinking or the Boulevard would no longer be a place where alcohol could be served.” Since when was alcohol ever “served”? To me, the word “served” implies that the alcohol was sold or provided by the school. I am very suspicious of the notion that the TABC has the jurisdiction to tell the university whether or not the school can allow 21-year-olds to drink on its private property since alcohol has never been served or provided by SMU in the history of tailgating at the Boulevard.
One of the few legal changes that are being implemented at the Boulevard is the use of the Mustang Express buses to shuttle students from the Boulevard to Ford Stadium in an attempt to get more students to actually attend the football games. While this is nice, I’ve got a better idea. Put the student section right by the stadium. Make the alums set up at the other end of the Boulevard and put the student tents right at the south end of the Boulevard so that students will want to go the game. We could let the alumni use the parking lots in front of Umphrey Lee, behind McFarlin Auditorium and the faculty lots by Fondren Science Building.
While the Boulevard Committee would like us to think that they have improved the tailga
ting experience, they have done nothing of the sort. They haven’t set any policy to curb underage drinking; they have only made it more of a hassle for 21-year-olds to drink before the games. If the school is really concerned about stopping underage drinking, then it is time for them to get serious, and make real policies that don’t break the law and actually achieve the desired results. Underage students are still going to drink under these rules, and we are still going to have police issuing citations. If the school were really serious about protecting the Boulevard, tailgating and the image of the university, they would have actually done something productive. The university was given an opportunity to make a positive change, and they blew it.
