Posted on 03/03/2014 3:35:49 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
Students who arrive in State College on Saturday for the annual State Patty's Day drinking holiday will find the majority of downtown restaurants and taverns closed or dry, Penn State officials say.
Damon Sims, Penn State's vice president for student affairs, said 33 of 35 downtown State College establishments, including all taverns and bottle shops, have agreed to accept monetary compensation offered by the university for a moratorium of the sale of alcohol Saturday.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.mcall.com ...
This makes sense to me. The problem is not one of people getting drunk, but of a lot of people getting drunk in a small area all at the same time.
Even the bars probably agreed with this, as while they would make a lot of money, fast, they also have a much greater chance for fights, vandalism, and related problems.
hehe
The bars in a lot of locales remove all the furniture and glassware, so partiers stand around drinking from plastic cups. But at least there’s Irish music (usually).
WTF! If the Penn State administrators would be minding the business of education and not so much the influence of alcohol in the community on St. Patrick’s day, it would be better for all (parents, students, bar owners, etc.) to decide if and how they will celebrate, not the university. I can understand that it may be difficult for some to distinguish between an Irish partier and a rioter, but that’s what the LEOs (of which many are of Irish descent) and the courts are paid to sort out.
Also, if there’s too much money laying around, hand out some on Martin Luther King day, Cinco de Mayo, election day, or any other day you want to influence the social behavior of the sheeple. At least the Irish won’t think you are biased toward them.
What was the name of the saint who drove the polar bears out of Spain?
I seem to have done a masterful job of driving all of the beautiful college-aged girls out of my love life over the past few decades. How should this new holiday go? ;)
Look what I found in the foreground
Sounds like you’ve been to Spring Break on Padre Island in Texas. Next to that, St. Patrick’s day is a snooze. At least you can’t burn down the island.
Oh well, remember “build it and they will come”....
St. Paddy’s Day?
What 'what' are ye' talkin' 'bout ?
English ... who needs it .... why in America, they haven't spoken it in YEARS (Rex Harrison, "My Fair Lady")
The problem is not one of people getting drunk, but of a lot of people getting drunk in a small area all at the same time.
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Being a former practicing drunk, ‘we’ had a rule that the two days one didn’t ‘hit the old watering hole’ were St Patricks and New Years Eve.
Bad enough putting up with other drunks the other 363 (or 4) days/nights but “AMATEUR NIGHT” was just that.
Bunch of rookie drunk ‘wannabees’ clogging the bars and highways.
What is a “bottle shop”? I live in central PA and have never heard that term before. Here in PA, the sale of liquor and wine are exclusively through the Commonwealth of PA owned Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores. Beer for the most part is only sold by “distributors” and can only be sold by the case.
ETA; a quick Google search indicates that “Bottle Shops” are places that are either beer distributors or establishments that can sell six packs, mostly carry out restaurants and a few grocery stores like Wegmans and wine sold by shops owned by wineries.
FWIW however, there are 4 Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores listed in State College. Are they going to be closed on that Saturday also?
No. The Fine Wine and Good Spirits stores across PA and in State College will be open that Saturday and on St. Patrick’s Day on Monday. They are mostly closed on Sundays, a few are open on Sunday with limited hours but they are all closed on Federal Holidays because of their union contract and designation as Commonwealth employees. And if you have had the displeasure of patronizing a Fine Wine and Good Spirits store, imagine a all the charm and dedication to customer service that you get from Penn Dot when getting your license or plates renewed along with a store that is both overpriced, under stocked and understaffed, especially before a holiday.
That means the university will have paid as much as $343,000 in the last two years to dissuade downtown tavern and restaurant owners from serving alcohol during the student-created holiday.
First of all, spending that amount of money to pay tavern and restaurant owners to close on that one day a year is ridiculous. I bet that there are many academic departments at Penn State that would love to share in part of those funds, say for new lab equipment, scholarships for deserving students, funding for some alcohol free alternative events, etc.
And the “student created holiday”? If by student created they mean going out and partying on Saturday March 15th for St. Patrick’s Day instead of on Monday March 17th, I don’t think that is exclusive to Penn State or to college students in general.
Or drive far and wide to get there booze and drive back drunk
Exactly. So rather than partying on Saturday or driving out of Happy Valley, they will instead go out on Monday, on the 17th and then skip classes on Tuesday.
Knowing st Patrick’s life story, having grown up in a school named for him, i can assure anyone he would not want any group of kids getting drunk at all, never mind all day, in his name or any other. The bar owners have taken advantage of these stupid kids and st Patrick long enough, I’m sure
Yep, we should absolutely spend state tax money to pay and dissuade business owners from selling a completely legal product to those who are of a legal age to buy it all because you don’t think a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary would approve. /s
BTW from what I understand, one of the biggest party nights for college students is the night before Thanksgiving. They go home and hook up with friends and party on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Of course Thanksgiving is not a drinking holiday per se, but a lot of college kids will do what college kids are prone to do, with or without the Nanny State trying to dissuade them and spending out tax dollars to do so.
Patrick comes from the Irish name Paedrick. Thus, Paddy. Paddy is used as a nickname for Patrick. My father’s side was full blown Irish and Uncle Paddy admonishes you on the use of Patty and Patty wagon... which he was an occasional rider in his youth. :)
I would think Penn State needs all the spare cash to pay the lawsuits from the Jerry Sandusky bone smuggling ring.
There are 45,000 undergraduate students at penn state
Whatever your points are, and honoring St Patrick with 3/4 of this population being drunk all day is just not a good argument, I can imagine that collecting $300,000 or $400,000 from weary local community members to turn off the supply would be pretty easy and to my estimation more effective in honoring him, since that’s what we’re talking about. And if it isn’t. The kids can just pick another day, no?
“Students who arrive in State College on Saturday”
Arrive? I’m thinking most of them are already there ... or do they just come in for the parties these days?
I’m Irish American. I can assure you that celebrating Irish heritage and oir beloved St Patrick by taking advantage of students who want a day off to get drunk, and who likely don’t care about Ireland Irish heritage or know the first thing about st Patrick, brings scandal and shame on the Irish
And it is unlikely that any cop working there in the middle of 30,000 drunk kids is supportive of the situation Irish or not
I’d bet a million that most Wisconsin bars will be open.
THANK yeh'
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