The UW-Madison Chancellor's Office came under attack from members of the tavern community and the Alcohol License Review Committee Thursday during the panel's public hearing on its Comprehensive Alcohol Issues Report.
The ALRC received the report and forwarded it to the City Council, but not before Chuck Taylor, a former State Street bar owner, said that UW-Madison should deal with its own problems before trying to tackle the city's dilemmas. Wednesday, Chancellor John Wiley came out in support of a partial ban on drink specials, which is one of the report's more controversial recommendations.
\He should be a better and less hypocritical role model,"" Taylor said of Wiley. ""The university should remove alcohol from all university venues.""
The Chancellor's surrogate, Noel Radomski, said the university endorsed the plan since it deals with problems that directly affect students.
""We do support accepting the report,"" he said. ""The main reason is were dealing with high risk drinking and its effects.""
Because state law allows the university to regulate its alcoholic venues, such as the Rathskeller in Memorial Union, the school does not need to come before the ALRC for approval or review.
Sue Crowley, the head of the Robert Wood Johnson Project, which encourages nonalchoholic activities on campus, said UW-Madison should not be targeted for downtown alcohol-related problems.
""Our record of disturbances and arrests are open ... and we have a clean record,"" she said.
Despite Crowley's reassurances, ALRC member Jessica Kachur said she was told by police officers that they had responded to a number of complaints around Memorial Union, which, according to Crowley, will be staying open an extra hour until bartime next fall.
""I've had officers tell me that [they] need to be on that end of State Street cause that's where the problems are,"" Kachur said.
Nearly a dozen UW-Madison students attended the meeting and expressed their concerns with the possible negative effects an 8 p.m. cap on drink specials would have on the university community.
Ryan Heinemann, a graduate student at UW-Madison, said he does not trust the ALRC to provide alternative venues for people to attend if drink specials are banned.
""You're going to take away drink specials and kids won't have anywhere to go,"" he said. ""If you really want to help students out you will keep the drink specials.""
The report will now go before the City Council May 7, though no specific resolutions will be introduced regarding the recommendations of the report until next fall according to Ald. Kent Palmer, District 15, chair of the subcommittee that authored the report.
""I heard some great ideas tonight,"" he said. ""I think this is a good jumping off point in fostering more public dialogue.\
