Clifton: Keg closure would be the city's failure

So Evanston is thinking about closing down The Keg. What else is new?

A local tradition for decades, many NU students consider a night at The Keg as a rite of passage, often a first bar stop for the newly 21-year-old student. And, to the chagrin of city officials, it's a thrilling excursion for some underage locals. Following the recent arrest of over a dozen underage drinkers at The Keg, some city officials feel closure is the best possible alternative.

Unfortunately, playing that card doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of an increasingly complex issue.

The Keg's attorney, Todd Stephens, asked Evanston Police Chief Richard Eddington at the liquor board meeting whether law enforcement wanted the establishment to keep people with fake IDs around until they could arrive to prosecute. Eddington's reply? "We'll see." The rest of the liquor board? Crickets.

In that moment — and many others — during the meeting, The Keg's representatives expressed ideas and desires for increased collaboration without much reciprocation from city officials. Instead, some officials characterized underage drinking in Evanston as an issue intrinsically linked to The Keg's reputation and operation. Eddington went as far to say, "The solution for me is no license. It's easy. The problem goes away."

No it doesn't and it's not that easy.

The Keg has a college bar reputation locally and nationwide, something no other local bar has since they serve an older clientele and typically don't play music and encourage partying. Since The Keg's primary market is college students interested in dance parties, it attracts a younger crowd and, in turn, more fake IDs and run-ins with underage patrons than other local bars.

NU's Director of Health Prevention and Wellness Lisa Currie acknowledges the difficulty for bars to screen IDs given new innovations in creating fakes, adding that "underage people will always try to get into bars; that won't change no matter what else does." According to Currie, her experience with handling underage and binge drinking at NU points away from The Keg as the major source of the issues. "I tend to hear about more problems arising from pre-gaming in general and from off-campus parties simply because there are more of them," she said. "There is only one Keg."

Eddington isn't alone in being out of touch with the habits of barely-legal drinkers or even of young people. City of Evanston lawyer Grant Farrar even attempted to prove that The Keg flaunts allowing access to underaged patrons, citing tweets from an obviously satirical Twitter account. The account's anonymous student creator tweeted Friday before closing the account that "This was and always has been unaffiliated with The Keg of Evanston and was only meant to be in good fun."

Any smart bar wouldn't dare operate such an account out of fear of losing its liquor license. Using it as evidence against The Keg would be like media outlets citing the infamous satirical Rahm Emanuel Twitter account as official statements from the campaign.

I'm no law enforcement, bar establishment or liquor licensing professional, but one thing many professionals and politicians do is examine the programs of their peers to come up with new ideas and solutions. Simply searching online shows what other cities with demographics like Evanston's are doing to creatively address underage drinking and fake IDs.

For example, in the face of similar issues, one Newport, RI officer formed an Identification Seizure program encouraging bars to cooperate with law enforcement. Bouncers hold suspected fake IDs and their owners until a police investigator arrives.

While many abandon the fake ID and leave, patrons who wait for the investigator and have their IDs found fake receive a maximum $500 citation. The program, in turn, sets a clear zero-tolerance tone from bars and deters fake ID usage.  

In less than a year, the program confiscated more than 800 fake IDs. Newport's police chief supported the program, and participation from bar owners tripled. The results were attributed to a decrease in assaults and disorderly conducts.

Newport bar owners initially avoided asking law enforcement for help, fearing it would harm their licensing renewal efforts, yet The Keg attempted to ask for help with not much apparent interest from officials. On the whole, current collaboration is both inexcusable and lazy.

Here at NU, Currie's office works with the NU community in alcohol education. While the programs have measurable success, Currie stressed that underage and binge drinking prevention includes a variety of approaches, including enforcement of alcohol policies and education to create changes in the local environment.

Closure would fix only a small part of a much larger and vast social problem. If underage drinkers can't get liquor at a local bar establishment hosting exciting parties, then they'll find other ways to experiment and potentially consume harmful levels of alcohol.

The Keg's closure would make an otherwise successful, cooperative and exciting business — for students and residents alike — a sacrificial lamb for a lack of engagement and resource devotion for a multifacted approach to curb underage drinking.

A closure wouldn't be The Keg's failure — it'd be a failure for city officials and Mayor Tisdahl.

Derrick Clifton is a Communication senior. He can be reached at derrick@dailyderrick.com