After issuing almost 200 citations last week, North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement officials are continuing to strictly enforce drinking laws off Duke’s campus.
Two female students were cited for possession of alcohol by a person under 21 outside of Verde, a popular restaurant and bar on Main St., Tuesday night. ALE agent Keith Patterson said he checked the identifications of about twenty people sitting outside the establishment. He was in plain clothes, but said he clearly identified himself as an ALE agent.
Alex Abbas, manager of Verde, said ALE agents have been showing up at the restaurant about once a week for the past month.
“The guy was totally rude, and he was totally not respectful,” Abbas said of Patterson’s actions Tuesday night. “He was destroying someone’s ID.”
Many students are now wondering if ALE will venture onto Duke’s campus to cite people violating drinking laws. Some are looking ahead to the tradition of tailgating and wondering if ALE will come to monitor the usually drunken festivities. “We would discuss that with the administration before we came on the campus,” said Jeff Lasater, the ALE Raleigh district supervisor, noting that such a discussion has not taken place.
Lasater said ALE has focused resources on enforcing alcohol laws at North Carolina State University tailgates in the past. He explained that because N.C. State’s stadium is owned by the state, it is easier for ALE—a government-run agency—to just “show up” there than it is at a private university like Duke. Also, Lasater said N.C. State’s stadium is farther away from campus than Wallace Wade is from Duke, which increases the associated drunk driving risk.
But Leanora Minai, senior public relations specialist for the Duke University Police Department, said ALE could come on campus to check if vendors like the Armadillo Grill and Twinnie’s, which are licensed to sell alcohol, are obeying the law.
“Generally speaking, they could go to the Armadillo Grill without letting anybody know to check if they are adhering to the rules,” Minai said.
Feeling the ALE squeeze and fearing agents will come to campus, students are looking for partying alternatives. Many are taking steps to further regulate their own off-campus parties or lobby for changes to the on-campus social scene.
“We have a different approach now,” said senior Alex Volsky, a former social chair for Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. “We have more party monitors at off-campus parties. We’re trying to regulate the parties as best we can so that if ALE shows up they see we have parties under control.”
Volsky added that many people are also hoping to bring parties back to campus. But some students do not think partying exclusively in quads and dorm rooms is the solution.
“I doubt on-campus [social life] will be improved by the elimination of an off-campus scene,” said junior Ben Rubinfeld, vice president of Campus Council and a member of the off-campus fraternity Eta Prime, formerly called Kappa Sigma until it left campus in 2002. “You can’t just eliminate the demand for social outlets by limiting the supply.”
Rubinfeld also noted that Duke Student Government and Campus Council are working to improve the on-campus social atmosphere.
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