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COVER STORY
Boozing it up Page 1
One of Ann Arbor's more popular pastimes,
drinking large amounts of alcohol, isn't exactly the
smartest hobby in the world. But weekend after
weekend, students suck down beer with little or no
thought to their well-being.
EXHIBITS -
Yesterday. If you want intriguing drama, see 'Bent.
Local theater has a little bit of everything.
RESTAURANTS
Raja Rani Page 9
Indian delicacies never tasted so good. So brave all
those hot spices and give Raja a try.
Prints
Page 3
The retrospective of Frank Stella prints has
arrived and is causing quite a stir among those who
have viewed the exhibition at the University Museum
of Art.
THEATER
Stage fright Page 4
If you're looking for lighthearted comedy, see Born
MUSIC
Mixed bag Page 12
A little bit of mellow jazz from Johnny Griffin at the
University Club and the post-disco-funk sounds of
Patrice Rushen at Power Center are previewed.
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Imhuhune: Ann Arhnr's nasttime
Wee kend Assistant Editor.Ben Ticho sity year and is available for free at many locations
vssistnt Edtor ....................'' enTicho around the campus and the city.
Voli. bIssue 3 Weekend, (313) 763-0379 and 763-0371; Michigan
the staff of The Michigan Daily at 420 Maynard, Ann Daily, ,764-0554.Circulation, 764-0558; Display Ad-
Magazine Editors .............. Richard Campbell Arbor, Michigan, 48109. It appears in the Friday vertising -05.
Michael Huget edition of the Daily every week during the Univer Cover photo by Brian Masck.
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work on your own ID ... most of the
stores and all of the bars will let you get
by."
Do bars in the campus area really let
underage patrons drink, in violation of
state law? Officially, of course, they
don't-they can't. Selling alcohol to
minors is not only against state law, it
can get a liquor license revoked. And at
$75,000 to $100,000 a throw, a liquor
license is a valuable asset-not
something to mess around with.
Yet unofficially, many bars in the
campus area make it extremely easy
for underage persons to drink. Dooley's
and Charley's, for example, are set up
so that customers can buy pitchers of
beer right from the bar; once the beer's
purchased, there's virtually no restric-
tion on who drinks it-just like in the
days before the age law went into ef-
fect.
"Underage people are in here," said
Rogers of Charley's on S. University,
"but we don't serve them. Underage
people have nothing to lose when they
come in and try to get served. If they
get caught, it's just a $5 fine. If we get
caught (serving them), we can lose our
license.
And off-campus, the restrictions are
even less stringent. Besides the hun-
dreds of keg parties every weekend
(Yes, hundreds: Campus Corners alone
usually sells around 150 kegs each
weekend, and most of them go to
students), there are plenty of par-
ties-such as the "Beer Olym-
pics -where alcohol is readily
available.
Rich Richardson, the coordinator of
the "Beer Olympics" for Theta Delta
Chi, was frank about it: "We could get
the beer cheaper if we got a (tem-
porary) liquor license, but we don't,
because the city would inspect us and
see if we violate the (drinking age) law.
We get a lot of people from the dorms.
And I think that's very positive. When
they go out and get kind of drunk, it's
better for them to.do it with a bunch of
students than in a bar."
The Beer Olympics, like many
campus parties and events, was
sponsored by one of the local
beer distributors-in this case Brewery
Products, the distributor of Olympia
beer. y
So if the Beer Olympics is geared
toward drinkers under 21, and if the
party is sponsored by Olympia
Beer,isn't Olympia Beer trying to
promote underage drinking?,
Gosh, no, says Richard Johnson,
manager of Brewery Products. "We
certainly don't condone underage
drinking. I think you know as well as
anyone else ... that there's going to be
underage drinking, but we certainly
don't condone that."
The arrangement is outwardly sim-
ple: In exchange for having its
trademark plastered allover the adver-
tising for the event, the brewery
provides all sorts of advertising
freebies, like money for ads and flyers,
banners, T-shirts, and prizes. The com-
pany gets exposure, and the frater-
nity-or whoever is in charge of the
event-gets a bunch of schlock.
But beer company sponsor-
ship-thoughit involves thousands of
dollars and dozens of events-is only a
tiny part of the brewers' advertising ef-
fort on campus. Both the breweries and
their distributors admit that the college
population is one of their key markets,
and 4they spend hundreds of thousands
of dollars each year trying to reach it.'
The companies spend all that money
for two reasons. First, college students
simply drink a hell of a lot of beer, and
the companies want to make sure
they're selling their share. Second,and
perhaps more important, the beer
'You keep drinking and all of a sudden it's
the next morning. You sort of reconstruct
what happened from what people say to
you. Somebody asks you 'Didn't we have a
good time at that party?' And you ask,
'What party?'
-Frank, a reformed alcoholic
more beer than they did before they
came to college-if they drank at all.
They're being oriented to drink more
beer ... so now, when they go out they'll
buy beer instead of something else."
Wanty, whose O & W Inc. last year
sponsored the Mud Bowl, Greek Week,
and the Freshman First Nighter, said
his company advertises to sell its,
product-just like any other company.
"Anything companies do-let's face
it-tends to be a promotional adver-
tising type of thing. We want people to
feel good about our products and enjoy
them. I don't think that those events are
what's making them addicted."
Some critics of the alcoholic
beverage industry, however, have
suggested that the liquor industry isn't
so much selling a product as selling a
way of life-a way of life that happens
to require the use and overuse of
alcohol. They argue that the liquor in-
dustry, even in its public service ads
which encourage moderation in
drinking, promote an increased depen-
dency on alcohol by our society.
Richard Douglass is a University
researcher who has devoted years of
study to the problems that alcohol con-
sumption causes for society. He has
testified before a Senate committee on
the problems the nation has in dealing
with alcohol abuse and he was an early
and ardent supporter of the movement
which raised the legal drinking age to
21. He doesn't buy the alcohol in-
dustry's story that their sponsorship of
events and advertising on campus are
merely harmless promotion of a
product: "If you look at the investment
of the Distilled Spirits Council in these
very small print ads (which encourage
"moderation" in drinking), it's in-
finitely small when compared to the
retail advertising in distilled spirits. It
is only done to present an image to the
Congress that they're being respon-
sible.
"And if you read those really
carefully, it's really liquor advertising.
One says: 'They're old enough, but are
they mature enough?' What's the
message there? Nobody's going to look
at that and say 'They're mature
enough, but I'm' not.'
"We have quite an open-door to the in-'
dustry here (at the University). To me,
the sinister motivations of this in-
dustry-and I really believe that's what
they are-exploit the university com-
munity, they insult our intelligence,
and they exploit our youth. And we get
nothing back. Nothing.
"These ads facilitate the entry of in-
dustry representatives into campuses
Michigan-perhaps by as many as 100
per month.
Douglass rejects the argument-ad-
vanced both by the alcohol industry and
many underage drinkers-that an adult
ought to be able "to choose his own
poison" and decide for himself whether
to drink to excess. "Well that's the
same argument you use for a victimless
crime. There is no such thing. A person
has no right to deny my society of his
productivity and contribution. He has
no right as a member of this society to
not accept his full responsibility and he
has no right to disable himself... In
the crassest, most object economic sen-
se we can't afford to promote the slow
or rapid disabling of our youth."
LCOHOL abuse, of course,
doesn't just cause car accidents.
The effects can be far more
astating.
Frank, a former alcoholic who is
currently an undergraduate, said his
gradepoint plunged when he was
drinking heavily, that he would pick
fights with his friends, and that, for a
while, he had a blackout at least once a
week. "You start drinking at a party,"
he said, "and you never really get
satisfied, so you keep drinking and
drinking and allof a sudden it's the next
morning. You sort of reconstruct what
happened from what people say to you.
Somebody asks you 'Didn't we have a
good time at that party?' and you ask
'What party?'
"The assumption is what irks me,"
he said. "It's the assumption that
companies' studies have found that the
drinking patterns formed by in-
dividuals during their college years are
likely to be carried over for much of the
rest of the people's lives.
"The local beer warehouses are
trying to create more business for
themselves. They're in business to do
that," said Richardson. "In an event
like the "Beer Olympics," we get a lot
of freshmen who start to drink a lot
so that our health events like
marathons, walkathons, rockathons,
danceathons, and sports events are all
sponsored by the alcohol in-
dustry-courting this young, and I
think, vulnerable market of the
population. And its all done in the name
of free enterprise."
Douglass says that the higher
drinking age has substantially reduced
the number of car accidents in
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Charles Thom:
Daily's pini
Campus fun: More beer
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