It Will Be a Great Day When Our Prohibition Groups Get All the Money They Need and the Students Have to Hold a Bake Sale to Buy a Beer
A story in Monday’s Times warns what could happen when a college town downtown like Madison’s gets a little too revitalized: people go to restaurants and bars. The piece quotes a retired librarian who relocated to A2’s unofficial sister city for “the community’s progressive politics.” She now lives her progressive ideals by her participation in “a relatively new residents’ group, Capitol Neighborhoods, which is at the forefront of the push for stricter drinking rules.” Think globally, act locally!
Of course, the problem isn’t just with Madison. “In the Midwest alone, La Crosse, Wis., and East Lansing and Ann Arbor, Mich., are struggling with how to cope with the public mayhem often fueled by inebriated students,” the reporter, Susan Saulny, asserts. Remember, these are cities in the Midwest ALONE! Imagine how many more there would be if the reporter didn’t restrict herself to a single area of the country when rattling off names of allegedly student-mayhem-crippled cities without a shred of evidence!
So, I didn’t know that we were trying to figure out how to cope with the public mayhem often fueled by inebriated students. Is there that much public mayhem around here? Even counting football Saturdays?
I think the author is confusing us with Columbus or East Lansing or one of those other places where they intentionally burn porch couches, instead of just setting them alight with our propane grills or cigarettes.
posted by Chris on January 4th, 2007 at 2:29 pmHistorically, the alcohol-fueled public mayhem has been South University basketball riots, but that was back in 1989.
Here’s a post showing days since last riot:
http://hooverstreetrag.blogspot.com/2006/11/well-it-wasnt-quite-2002.html
“Days Since Last Riot*
Ann Arbor: 6485
East Lansing: 642
Columbus: 47
*For our purposes, a riot is any large public disturbance that results in the destruction of property.
The last Ann Arbor riot was following the 1989 NCAA basketball tournament victory, which resulted in broken windows and tear gas on South University. The last MSU riot was following their Final Four loss in 2005. The last Columbus riot was Saturday night. Car flipped == riot.”
posted by Edward Vielmetti on January 4th, 2007 at 2:39 pmHaving lived in Madison and now in Ann Arbor, the alcohol consumption of the two cities and their respective college students isn’t even close. Madison has many real bars, where Ann Arbor only tends to have a few true bars and a handful of restaurants with booze.
posted by Alex on January 4th, 2007 at 2:56 pmAlcohol-fueled public mayhem in East Lansing is directly traceable to the voter initiative to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 in 1978, unaccompanied by any willingness in society and culture to actually delay drinking three more years.
From 1971 until 1978, MSU undergraduate students drank, legally, in student bars. The bars were well-appointed commercial establishments which had incentives to provide a pleasant environment for their customers, bouncers to keep the peace, and adequate toilet facilities.
After 1978, the student bars went into decline. Some survived for a time by winking at fake IDs. Unfortunately, if you’re not insisting on genuine ID, you don’t have any bright line between a 20-year-old and a 14-year-old, and so these places began to attract high school students from as far away as Grand Rapids and Detroit.
Ultimately, stricter enforcement put all these places out of business, but not before East Lansing was established as the mid-Michigan’s underage drinking mecca.
As the bars shut down, East Lansing started to experience drinking parties in student neighborhoods for thousands of people. Most of the attendees paid some shadowy entrepreneur $2 or $5 for a hand stamp and access to the kegs. Unlike the brick-and-mortar licensed drinking establishments, these unregulated entrepreneurs didn’t find it necessary to provide toilet facilities or peacekeepers for their vast throngs of customers, with predictable consequences.
It turned out that there wasn’t any distinction worth mentioning between “3,000 people gathered for the purpose of illegal alcohol consumption” and “riot causing fires, overturned cars, and property damage”. The most avid mayhem participants in always turned out to be nonstudents (or at least non-MSU-students), but MSU-students-as-a-group were always blamed.
This in turn created an anti-student backlash and the enactment of draconian measures intended to drive students out of off-campus neighborhoods.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 4th, 2007 at 3:37 pmInteresting, Larry.
Another thing that jumped out at me about this article was the mention of bar patrons throwing their empty beer cans on the sidewalk. Do a lot of bars serve beer in cans? Don’t they stop customers from bringing containers outside, or is that just if they’re full containers?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 4th, 2007 at 3:43 pmWisconsin, with its German beer-drinking culture, has lots of small taverns — I think more bars per capita than any other state. Wisconsin also doesn’t require deposits on beverage containers. Considering these differences, the practice of selling beverages in Wisconsin is probably quite different from Michigan.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 4th, 2007 at 4:03 pmAs a non-native resident, I find the deposits on beverage containers to be a humorous anachronism, but not a motivation to return my bottles. The price of a six pack of beer is cheaper here with the deposit added than it was where I lived before with no deposit. I doubt the deposit has much effect on anything.
posted by Beer drinker on January 4th, 2007 at 4:36 pmIt has a clear effect on the number of empties you see lying around, which is effectively zero for those with deposits.
posted by Chris on January 4th, 2007 at 4:48 pmIt might not entice you to take your empties back, but it can turn bums into de facto street cleaners.
Also, I’m glad this grumpy, meddlesome old bag moved away from Ann Arbor. I, too, must be missing all this public mayhem. I also don’t know how Ann Arbor developed a reputation as a retirement community. “Dad gummit! Why are all these rambunctious kids hanging around in this college town? I’m trying to drink my prune juice in peace and quiet!”
Move to Shady Acres, grandma.
posted by Dave on January 4th, 2007 at 8:02 pmShe actually lived in Phoenix before, which seems like it would be a better fit.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 4th, 2007 at 8:13 pmWhat makes you think grandmas and grandpas want to move to Shady Acres? I’ve been told that people retire to Ann Arbor because of the students - it makes it a lively and stimulating place - along with excellent medical care, great performance venues, restaurants galore and top notch public transportation. Maybe what they are drinking ain’t prune juice but single malt whiskey? (Discreetly, in the brown bag, of course.)
posted by justme on January 5th, 2007 at 7:49 amWell..I live here in AA, my son is senior in Boulder and my daughter a sophomore in Madison.
Without a doubt, even if I…couldnt …see all the pics of sloshed coeds in Facebook, I know Ann Arbor pales in comparison to both of those campuses.
Only the tuition is more expensive than the bar bills.
posted by saa on January 5th, 2007 at 8:21 amHeh. Top notch public transportation. Funny.
posted by Pants Rule on January 5th, 2007 at 8:36 amPants: the demand-response public transport services (senior taxi and A-Ride) are head-and-shoulders above most other similar services throughout the country.
Many people do say that they move to AA as seniors because it is easier to get around here without a car.
posted by keaz on January 5th, 2007 at 9:56 amSure, it would be nice to have late night and weekend service, light rail, connections to Metro Airport, etc. But can you name a Midwest city of Ann Arbor’s size or smaller that has a better bus system? I doubt it.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 5th, 2007 at 9:57 amWe lived from 93-97 with no car in AA. Very doable.
posted by Chris on January 5th, 2007 at 10:36 am“What makes you think grandmas and grandpas want to move to Shady Acres? I’ve been told that people retire to Ann Arbor because of the students”
He didn’t say that grandmas and grandpas want to move to Shady Acres……He said this the particularly idiotic retired librarian quoted in the Times piece should move to Shady Acres.
And he’s right.
This is why I’d never make it as a Council person. The exchange that I would have with this librarian, who clearly never took the time to read the books she was managing, would go something like this:
“It’s too loud downtown, and people are out making noise and having fun late into the evening. I shouldn’t have to deal with this”.
Councilman Leopold “Please show me your hands, Ma’am”.
“Show you my what?”
Councilman Leopold “Show me your hands, please. I want to make sure that you have opposable thumbs because for the life of me I can’t understand why a full grown adult human, who doesn’t like late night noises, would choose to live in the largest goddamn city in our fair state that is not only the Capitol of our state, but also the home to the biggest COLLEGE CAMPUS in our state. The problem isn’t the noise. The problem is YOU, you idiot. You chose the wrong city. We have hundreds and hundreds of cities in Wisconsin that are perfectly quiet for you. We’ve worked for years to finally get our downtown areas to a point where people actually want to go out and have fun in droves, and now morons like you want to limit badly needed tax dollars, good paying jobs, and endless construction contracts just because some old lady was stupid enough to move into the middle of it.”
Old lady “Sir, that’s rude”.
Councilman Leopold “Yeah, well, why is it that it never occurs to people like you that YOU are the problem in this situation, not the city? What you’re doing is the equivalent of moving to Germany, loving the food, but then going to the German government and complaining that you didn’t think that there would be so many damn Germans everywhere, and can you please do something about my problem…….You’re an idiot, and I’ve no time for you. Now please bring the horse that you rode in on into the chambers so that I can tell it what to do as well……..
Thankfully, it looks like there are only a couple of idiot Councilpersons in Madison who agree with this moron. It amazes me that people in the US seem to think that a booming city isn’t a godsend……like tax money and good jobs grow on trees in America, or in particular, Wisconsin. Of course, what does this old lady care about tax money? She’s retired, and her husband already has a job at the University, so screw everyone else as she’s already “got hers”. Obviously, Madison needs to change for her, rather than having her change for Madison. I can’t believe that the NYTimes would give this idiot ink in their paper.
So yes, “just me”, I’m sure that this lady loves many of the things about Madison that you mentioned. However, like many things in life, it’s not all wine and roses. There are tradeoffs, and as is becoming more typical in America, she seems to think that she should have her own little oasis in Madison, and the city should only allow bars and restaurants to remain open when SHE wants to patronize them. These people want to make the whole world into a quiet, homogenized suburb, and thankfully, there’s still enough city dwellers to show her the door….
The only thing that annoyed me more than the Librarian was the comment from the Police rep. about how 75% of their weekend duties has to deal with alcohol. You have to deal with alcohol on weekends? Horrors! Shut up and do your job. Or would you prefer poverty related crime? Jeez. What does this guy think he should be dealing with at 2am on a Friday night in the State Capitol? White collar crime? Come on already.
I’m also surprised that no one has pointed out that the Times article cited that 1,500 new people per year have moved to downtown Madison of late, and then made the connection to the markedly lower housing costs in Madison when compared to Ann Arbor……
…..wait a minute, wait a minute: you mean if you build enough housing supply to keep up with market demand that housing costs will stay LOWER???? Someone call the UMich Econ department. I think that we’ve found a new and incredibly complicated economic theory. I think I’ll call it the “Theory of Supply and Demand”. I’m such an innovator!
posted by todd on January 5th, 2007 at 11:03 amTodd, I was waiting for your thoughts on this, and, as usual, I’m not disappointed.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 5th, 2007 at 11:11 amDon’t hold back - tell us what you really feel.
posted by LittleB on January 5th, 2007 at 11:56 amHell, Todd, I know you wouldn’t want it, but I think you just might have my vote.
posted by Dave on January 5th, 2007 at 1:09 pmI just can’t ever imagine moving to a town for its politics. What kind of people would do that? Somehow I feel that the ‘U’ job was more of a deciding factor than the politics and “pedestrian friendly streets”.
The reporter was probably pretty directing in her questions and selective in what she put in there. I doubt it was like
Reporter: Top 3 reasons! Go!
Lady: um…um…sidewalks, job, annnnddd…annnnd…politics!
I think a couch ban could fix Madison’s problems.
posted by AHFB on January 5th, 2007 at 2:35 pmThanks again to AAIO for my daily dose of “thank GOD I don’t live in a midwestern college town anymore”.
posted by Nick on January 5th, 2007 at 3:00 pmAlways happy to oblige.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 5th, 2007 at 3:40 pmHey, Todd - you’ve got MY vote!!!
posted by justme on January 5th, 2007 at 5:12 pmmine, too!
posted by peter honeyman on January 5th, 2007 at 5:41 pmAHFB: out of curiosity, have you ever lived in an area where your political, social, sexual, religious, etc. views are drastically different than almost everyone else’s?
It’s not exactly a picnic. When you’re in that situation you can either stick your head in the sand and try to ignore the constant stream of comments and actions you’ll inevitably disagree with, try to engage and challenge everyone else (which takes an enormous amount of energy if you want to do it in a civil manner), or be a jerk and put people in their place by actively dismissing them.
I wasn’t Buddhist enough to handle that type of situation in a place i once lived, so i moved out of that area to one which more aligned with my beliefs.
posted by keaz on January 5th, 2007 at 5:58 pmMy folks now live in Madison and I grew up in Milwaukee. No comparison to Ann Arbor, in part because the students in Madison are slightly dumber, and in part because Madison is a real city, not a campus with a few groomed blocks around it. This will make the job of any would-be ‘reformer’ either more difficult or less. As for deposits on cans, when I was a kid Milwaukee was a beer-can collector’s dream, with empties everywhere. Any patch of woods had old rusty cone-tops dating back to the 50s — along with primitive ‘nudist’ magazines showing Scandinavian men and women on cold-looking beaches, stashed in the weeds. These magazines had no deposit, either.
The problem with the idea of ’small quiet towns’ in Wisconsin is that they will also be full of bars and kids driving around shouting and shooting roman candles and waving Green Bay propaganda. I’ve been to many tiny towns in Wisconsin and they are literally 6 bars with Pabst and Old Style signage, a gas station and garage, and a tiny grocery store. They usually do not sell beer in cans in these taverns, but some do. I recommend Point beer, which is bottled in Stevens Point, WI. You can always get it cheap at Nick’s bar on State Street, Madison, before you go out and start hunting old librarians.
posted by toasty on January 5th, 2007 at 6:07 pmHeh. The person I knew with the biggest inferiority complex about having gone to a state school went to Madison. I never got it; there’s some really great departments there.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 5th, 2007 at 6:26 pmI agree with Larry’s comments about raising the drinking age. I was 16 when it went up to to 21 and I was mad (I thought if raising the drinking age to 21 saved lives, why not raise it to 65 and save even more?) Another problem that has been pointed out by Europeans is that Americans tend to binge drink; I suspect another manifestation of the ban on alcohol. Proabition works at reducing the total amount of alcohol consummed but I suspect not the maximum amount consumed at one sitting. If it is illegal to drink, then on the few occasions you do, you need to make up lost ground! I can see how young adults form bad drinking habits between the ages of 18-21 that they then carry over in their later years (that is, the binge drinking.) Europeans think our drinking laws are stupid and I agree.
posted by Chuck L. on January 5th, 2007 at 6:37 pmAs a former (and possibly future) Ann Arborite and current Boulder CO resident, let me say this: thank the god(s) you have bottle return laws! I have lived in the student ghetto in Ann Arbor, and I currently live in Boulder’s version of it. What’s the difference? Here in Boulder the sidewalks, lawns, streets, etc. are covered in broken glass. And dog shit, too. But that’s another story.
posted by MLK on January 5th, 2007 at 7:08 pmI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — Leopold in the 5th Ward!
posted by Dale on January 5th, 2007 at 8:16 pmHey, everyne in town who is walking a dog is carrying a plastic bag - MUCH improved now that we have the dog poop ordinance.
I’m told that the staus poop bag is the blue “New York Times” wrapper.
posted by justme on January 5th, 2007 at 10:54 pmAll of the intelligence in the UW-Madison student body is in the graduate school.
posted by RDS on January 5th, 2007 at 11:30 pmTo get back to the original topic, I HAVE had some scary near-misses with obvious drunk drivers around Ypsi, particularly people driving the wrong way on one-way streets in the vicinity of EMU (particularly Cross Street just before the water tower). It’s always on weekends and holidays, too. Given that I work weekends, it kind of sucks.
I don’t know whether these were students. I was too busy trying not to DIE to ask to see a student ID.
I’m getting to the point where I’m afraid to drive at all. Every time I leave for work and come back home, I’m taking my life in my hands.
The cops in Ypsi really need to do something about it, but it seems like on weekends they’re all patrolling Michigan Avenue, waiting for someone to go by with a cracked taillight so they can fill their ticket quotas for the week.
posted by Anonymous on January 5th, 2007 at 11:56 pmAs for Madison undergrads who wash up in New York, aaio, I have always found them to assume equal footing with we titans of the Big 10, to which I always gleefully cut them down to size. (This happens later, after they have gone, and I finally think of the perfect zinger, while staring at my moldy ceiling.) The grad students are of course a different story.
posted by toasty on January 6th, 2007 at 1:47 amha.
Michigan undergrads are like everything else in this town - overrated.
posted by Alex B on January 6th, 2007 at 1:39 pmkeaz:
Well lets see, I’ve lived in
1) West Michigan
2) Ann Arbor
so that means I’ve probably lived somewhere I don’t agree with
I dunno, when people say ridiculous things I just find it more hilarious than anything. What gets me more than anything are big SUV people that tailgate me. But they seem to live everywhere.
posted by AHFB on January 8th, 2007 at 12:58 amAHFB: well, if you have a sense of humor, you’re probably used to being part of a very small minority in Ann Arbor.
posted by Nick on January 8th, 2007 at 12:12 pmTweaking self-righteous liberals with no sense of humor is one of life’s little joys.
posted by Dave on January 8th, 2007 at 12:32 pmIt is the beauty of AAIO, in a nutshell.
posted by OFWinsurgent on January 8th, 2007 at 6:21 pmToasty, I agree on the Point Beer. I just came back from a visit to the in-laws in Stevens Point. Took the brewery tour and came back with a case of Spring Bock just bottled last week. We’re sorely lacking in Blatz and Hamms house bars like our Wisconsin brethren but I’ll hang out a Point Beer sign and pour till they run out ($10 a bottle, gotta make up for the lack of a 10 cent return).
posted by Thomas Cook on January 10th, 2007 at 10:59 amha…riots…go to a real city if you want a riot…
as for Columbus flipping over cars, that’s just the sort of antics Ann Arbor needs.
posted by Seth on January 10th, 2007 at 12:38 pmFor the benefit of your city’s Fifth Ward, our friendly proposal from across the freshwater pond is for you to establish six new taverns which exclusively serve Pabst and Old Style. Offer them in cans or bottles, your choice. Cheese curds a la carte also recommended. Space the taverns evenly among your residential streets. They will of course be located inside large old neighborhood churches, their chapels remodeled for the occasion. But in the interests of safety the gasoline pumps will be installed outside in the parking lots. A Sunday post-communion bacchanal for your ward.
posted by Dells Angels on January 10th, 2007 at 9:19 pmI don’t know, people who complain about noise in a college town are sort of like those people that complain about noise from an airport. I mean, you didn’t notice the large piece of flat land with all those metal objects coming from it?
posted by Kozzie_13 on January 18th, 2007 at 2:49 pmNot quite the same. Well-behaved airplanes make noise. They are supposed to. Well behaved young adults. . ?
posted by LittleB on January 18th, 2007 at 9:02 pmThomas Cook, I like it. I like it very much.
Dells, can I ride with you?
posted by toasty on January 21st, 2007 at 3:06 am