Bar Responsibility

5 Pages 1142 Words

Take a Sunday morning stroll around the Pine Hills community in downtown Albany and you’ll likely encounter the wreckage of the previous night’s partying. Keep your eye out for broken bottles as you make your way down Quail Street. Notice the scattered plastic cups and beer cans that mark the path, and the bleary-eyed coeds, with disheveled clothes and hurting heads, making the “walk of shame” home from an unplanned sexual encounter (vivid description). Alcohol-related social and recreational opportunities characterize the college experience: happy hour bonding with classmates, ladies night with the girls, and wine and cheese gatherings. Less often acknowledged is how drinking interferes with the academic character of the campus, the harmony of the neighborhood, and the health and safety of the entire community.
Now, here are some sobering facts. A survey performed in the year 2000, by the Core Institute, sampled 55,026 undergraduate students from 132 colleges across the US. 59% of the students surveyed were 20 years old and under. Of the total students surveyed, an astounding 84% reported using alcohol at least once in the year prior to the survey, and 72% within 30 days prior. Of the 32,175 students sampled who are under the age of 21, 82% admitted to using alcohol within a year prior to the survey, and 69% within the past 30 days! On average, per week, freshman and sophomore students drink over 5 drinks. That means that the average number of drinks that a minor is drinking a week is 5! Binge drinking, defined as five or more drinks in one sitting, has become a major problem on college campuses nation wide (definition). 46.5% of students sampled engaged in binge drinking at least once during the two weeks prior to the survey.
Do I really need to go into great detail about the consequences of alcohol and binge drinking (rhetorical question)? It’s one of the biggest problems among college students today. 1,40...