Bar none

Thursday, October 15, 1998

Bar none

CAMPUS: UCLA needs drinking establishment to facilitate social
interaction

Hello. I am Patrick, your columnist. This is our first time
together, so I am a bit nervous. (Are you?) I seek neither to
offend nor to enlighten – so, should I fail, you have my apologies
in advance. I have decided to write about having a bar on campus.
We shall see how this goes.

For those not up on the news, please allow me to summarize what
has been happening. The Cooperage in Ackerman was originally meant
to be a student pub. A cliched battle between party minded students
and stuffy administrators followed, and almost two decades later,
UCLA is still without a space for the consumption of alcohol. A
recent Bruin article (Registration Issue, "Debate about possible
campus pub continues") gave some details and a few quotes
concerning the pros and cons of the controversy.

I shall not keep you in suspense: I think a campus bar would be
wonderful. The treatment of the issue in the aforementioned
article, however, did not do justice to the argument for a campus
bar. Why is this the case? Is it that "liberal media bias" about
which I keep hearing? Perhaps there is an even more nefarious
conspiracy. (I shall discuss this later.)

Well, this is where I, the columnist, enter the fray. Alcohol
and bars, in general, are fine things. Alcohol can provide the
perfect social lubricant or (in larger quantities) a great source
of entertainment. Fondness for bars may be an acquired taste. The
typical Westwood bar assaults one with bad cologne, a
brain-scrambling din and the terrors of unabated heterosexuality –
but one can have much fun in spite of (or is it because of) all
these distractions. Each bar experience reminds me how much they
all have in common, and I cannot help but smile when I think of the
ineluctable absurdity of the banal.

Yes, were there a bar on campus, I would be there. Sometimes I
need to be on campus by 9 a.m., but should I arrive by 8:30, then I
would have just enough time for a shot of Chivas and a mai-tai
chaser. I could similarly pass other off-hours on a barstool. I
could drown my sorrows and I could celebrate life’s small
victories, all on campus.

Other people have other reasons to drink. Beer snobs could go to
sample expensive, gimmicky microbrews, and oenophiles could be even
more pretentious. Some, of course, just want to get loaded. Each of
the many reasons why students drink is a reason for UCLA to have
its own bar. It is rather naive of me to claim that a bar’s only
purpose is to provide people with alcohol. If this were true, then
we would just need an on-campus liquor store. No, bars definitely
serve a social role.

This social role provides spots for people to watch sports,
listen to music and vent as they unwind – but it would be even more
naive of me to claim that this was it. We all know that bars play
an important part in America’s sex life, and a bar on campus could
be equally important in UCLA’s sex life.

Suppose I found myself on campus and feeling rather randy.
Suppose further that I wished to meet someone in a non-men’s room
setting. Well, as things are now, I would have to leave campus to
satisfy my libido. With a bar in the Cooperage, I would be just a
hop, skip and/or jump away from chatting up some cute, loose,
inebriated fellow student. It seems pretty clear that someone else
had all this in mind. After all, the A-level of Ackerman Union
(where the Cooperage is located) also houses several soft,
cushioned surfaces in the Viewpoint Lounge – and a condom machine
in the men’s room. I could grab a drink, meet a stranger, satiate
my lust and return to my office all within an hour. The case
against a student bar now looks pretty weak.

Who opposes putting a bar on campus? The Bruin article mentions
a few figures by name, but many in positions of power probably
voiced their opposition. A simple explanation for all of this is
that some administrators have worried about disorderly conduct,
drunk driving or (implausibly) UCLA’s academic integrity.

I fear that there may be more here than meets the eye. If a
campus bar were to open, who would have the most to lose? The most
vulnerable, I think, would be the local dynasties. Westwood’s
established bars rule the Village with iron fists, and their
influence might extend to campus. We cannot be sure how many chairs
and buildings they have endowed or how many professors and
administrators they control.

The controversy over a campus bar will continue. When an
administrator speaks out against a student tavern, ask yourself
whom he really represents. Others appear to oppose plans for a
campus bar merely because they fear that such an enterprise would
lose money. I find such fear unwarranted (and perhaps insincere).
College students love to drink, and they will pay a pretty penny to
do so.

Even if mere beverage sales are slow, there are many other
bar-related opportunities on which ASUCLA to rake in the dough.
They could sell food, clothing or maybe beer steins (perhaps with a
deal for discounted refills). The biggest profit, of course, would
be in selling fraudulent identification cards. These little pieces
of plastic would allow the campus bar to snatch up thousands of
additional student dollars. Once the campus bar taps into this
underage market, it can jack up its prices, as no decent off-campus
establishment would honor a cheap, ASUCLA-issued fake ID.

Yes, there may be a few legal snafus in such a strategy, but
nothing that a little graft could not fix.

Actually, ASUCLA stands to make so much money with this
enterprise that it should not stop with the Cooperage.

Ackerman could house a friendly watering hole where jocular
jocks gather to watch the games and talk about scoring, but other
venues could offer other opportunities for drinking enjoyment. I
could venture over to Lu Valle Commons for a swanky piano bar with
martinis aplenty. If I wanted something low-key, maybe I could head
to North Campus’s British-style pub to play darts and talk about
football, fish and chips, the telly or whatever it is that Brits
say.

These campus drinkeries would be quite different, but they would
be united by plastic cups listing the word for beer in two dozen
languages.

Well, dear reader, we are reaching the end. This is where,
typically, the columnist would issue a call to arms. It would be
quite disingenuous of me, however, to tell you to go harass
administrators or hit the streets in protest. Besides, it is a sad
world where alcohol is the only issue that moves us to action.

I seek not to incite my readers to any kind of action. I am here
merely to share a few thoughts and perhaps bring you some
amusement.

Reading my column is far from productive, but it may bring a
smile, and in this way it is like a trip to a bar. Perhaps this is
all that needs to be said.

Patrick Friel

Friel is a graduate student in mathematics.

He welcomes comments at [email protected].

Comments, feedback, problems?

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