Campus bars dance with the law
By Jocelyn Beach Sexton
It’s late on a warm Thursday night. In fact, it’s early Friday morning, often considered the start of the weekend for college students. But driving down High Street tonight, past the usually packed patios and lingering lines, campus looks like a ghost town. Classes have been over for almost a week, so the deserted feeling may be normal. Students have either gone home for the summer or are still recovering from a busy Spring Quarter. As bar owners will attest, numbers always go down during summer months. Outside the entrance to one campus club, however, a bouncer suggests otherwise.
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“I probably turned down 200 people tonight,” he says. “We’re officially 21 and up now.” He looks annoyed and tired at this point, busying himself as I attempt to ask questions, and making it clear that he wishes to remain anonymous. Whether the bouncer’s mood is a result of the new policy, or the resulting “why’s” probably asked by 200 confused underagers and a reporter, is unclear.
Across campus, another bouncer is apologetic as he delivers the same news. “I’m sorry, we’re 21 and up right now,” he says, a little less sure of himself and the bar’s policy. “We’ve just had too many kids in tonight. The cops are up our ass lately.”
Clearly, something beyond dwindling summer numbers is behind the clearing out of campus bars. In the last few weeks, three that are notoriously popular with the 18 to 20 crowd have changed their door policies. Four Kegs and Miani’s are now permanently 21 and over, and the Nuthouse is switching to a similar policy.
Erica Sipe, a 23-year-old Ohio State student, is happy with their decision. “That’s awesome,” Sipe said. “I’ll probably go to those bars more now. I can’t stand the x’s, the under-21 stuff. They just get too shit-faced.”
Ask anyone at these bars for an explanation behind the switch, and they begin to flinch. They throw out vague references to “vice,” “agents,” and “bad press.” They are wary of any attention, not just negative attention, and their wariness is understandable. Bar owners and managers deal with a host of pressures from Liquor Control, which supplies liquor licenses, the city, which renews liquor licenses, the police, who monitor the bars, and the Department of Public Safety and its undercover Investigative Unit, which enforces liquor laws. Under the influence of these government forces, they also try to run a business, cater to a 50,000 population of student customers, and even make a profit.
The challenge for campus bars, in deciding whether to be 18 or 21 and over, lies in weighing the risks versus the rewards, according to attorney Jim Andrioff. And with the recent wave of changing policies, it seems the risks of incurring fines for liquor violations and potentially losing liquor licenses have finally taken precedence over the monetary rewards of letting in underagers.
Andrioff, who represents bars such as Miani’s, Four Kegs, Nuthouse, and Little Bar, said the crackdown has to come from the top. “Our government, especially under Taft (Governor Bob Taft), has always had a strong policy against underage drinking,” Andrioff said. To enact this policy, the government then tells Liquor Control, or its enforcement arm, the Department of Public Safety, to focus on curbing underage drinking in a target area, like Ohio State’s campus, according to Andrioff.
Attorney Ed Hastie, of Newhouse, Prophater, and Letcher, represents Lucky’s Stout House and Hendoc’s Pub on campus. Hastie agreed with Andrioff, adding that due to limited resources, the Department of Public Safety has to pick its battles and its bars. “They are going to have to prioritize when they have 25,000 permit holders to monitor,” Hastie said. “Obviously the places exposing themselves to the most risk are targets. They are picking the 18 and over bars because in [Public Safety’s] mind, those bars are already serving underage. It’s harder to bust the 21 and over places.”
Luke Martinson, bartender and manager at Panini’s, recognizes the risk of staying 18 and over at this time.
“I noticed that Liquor Control has been trying to cut down on underage drinking,” he said. Though Martinson said Panini’s is not changing to 21 and over.”
“It’s getting worse, and I am worried,” Martinson said, “But we just have to be smart. As a bartender, I’ll I.D. every time. I don’t have the time or money to deal with those kinds of charges.”
Donald Borror, a 19-year-old Columbus native, thinks the bars will face more problems, or different problems, as they become stricter. “It’s good for everyone 21 and over,” Borror said, “but for the rest of us, it will just increase the use of fake [I.D.s].”
According to Hastie, there are two methods the Department can use to cite a bartender or a bar for a liquor violation. One involves an underage informant attempting to buy alcohol, and the other involves an undercover liquor agent observing the bar for any illegal sales.
According to Andrioff, if a bartender is charged with serving someone underage, the result is a criminal violation and a $500 fine. For the permit holder, the fine for a first offense can be anywhere from $500 to $1000, and for the second offense, the fine doubles. If there are more than two offenses in a two-year period, the bar’s liquor license may be suspended or revoked.
“[Campus bars] have been involved in so many legal battles,” Andrioff said, “and it costs them a lot of money. They operate on a slim margin as it is, and the smoking ban has already cut into that.”
The result, though Andrioff and Hastie never tell their clients they must switch to 21 and over, is often just that: a simple change in policy in hopes of avoiding any final legal action by the City of Columbus.
“If [the city] wants you out of there... one way or another they’ll get you out of there,” Andrioff said.
This “one way or another” is what worries bar owners and managers and their legal representatives. They speak of questionable ethics and unfair practices in regard to the undercover system of law enforcement.
According to Hastie, the Department of Public Safety is not allowed to use trickery or deceit when entering a bar. For example, an underage informant cannot use a fake I.D. to get into the bar or buy a drink. Hastie believes the line of deceit is sometimes blurred, though.
“Bar owners get angry when [underage informants] are sneaking in side doors. [The owners] get in trouble, and they don’t even know how this underage person got in,” Hastie said. He added that in the past, the Department has also used underage informants that look much older than the legal drinking age.
“The State is allowed to enforce the law; I’m just asking that they do it fairly,” Hastie said. “If these places are as bad as they say, they should be able to bust them without sneaking people in.”
But as Hastie ponders the government’s ethics, bars on campus are already taking preventative action. They are analyzing their profits and making changes, either in entrance age restriction or closer monitoring of sales. They are on the lookout for undercovers, creating a sort of phone chain to warn others when “vice is out.” They are doing something, or at least they are giving Public Safety the appearance of doing something.
As for the Department of Public Safety: “They want to teach the bars a lesson, and they go after places they know are a problem,” Hastie said.
But he also believes there are more practical, business-related reasons for the crackdowns.
“It is also about revenue. Any money that comes from the fines goes back to the Ohio Department of Public Safety. And of course they want high-profile cases. They go out of their way to make examples of campus bars. They want publicity. They want to give the appearance of doing something.”
Originally Published: Issue 506 - June 20, 2007
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