Many of us have been there: you're sitting in a dirty bathroom trying to get a black "X" off in order to get wasted at a Chippewa bar.
It's a direct result of what's called "commingling," where people ages 18-20 can get into a bar even though they're underage as long as they're marked and not allowed to drink. As most of you know, that kind of measure is a joke.
Not only can you easily remove the mark, but, if you have a single friend over 21, he or she can buy your drinks and totally circumvent the genius "magic marker" plan.
On top of that, the underage drinking was causing a myriad of problems for the downtown area. Fights and violence plague the downtown area, often stemming in part from people younger than 21 hanging around the bars.
Owners of some Chippewa bars even feel that adults are being driven away from the downtown area because of the atmosphere created by immature drinkers.
Solutions have been thrown around for over a year now on how to control groups of underage individuals loitering around bars, and the Buffalo City council has agreed upon a law that balances the issue well.
Nobody under 21 will be allowed in the downtown bars. No more 18 to party, 21 to drink idiocy, except on Thursdays and if the bar requests a waiver for a particular event, say if a college group has a party at a bar.
Establishments will have to submit information about the event before receiving a waiver.
Downtown bar owners have been asking for help, and their pleas have finally been answered. Considering the alternatives proposed by others, the measure is relatively tame and considerate of the owners of bars that already practice commingling.
On top of the exemptions already mentioned, the measure was modified to exclude businesses that serve alcohol but are not bars, like hotels and Shea's.
While this bill might be somewhat difficult to enforce, it doesn't waste already thin police resources like other measures that would have blocked off the whole area with police barricades. An entire street party every night might sound great, but the cost and difficulty to maintain would be enormous.
Some bar owners have claimed that the law has a fatal flaw: most of the violence occurs because of people loitering outside and not inside the bars. Banning them, some claim, won't alleviate the problem.
Logically, however, this makes little sense. People aren't hanging around the bars to talk with their buddies; they're there after drinking or in anticipation of drinking. If you remove the whole reason for them to be down there, they won't be hanging around and causing trouble.
The ball is now in Mayor Byron Brown's court. Indications are that Brown may veto the bill, saying it doesn't go far enough by making exemptions, but vetoing the bill will do little more than delay the help that downtown has been asking for.
Brown needs to sign this measure into law as soon as possible and start cleaning up the downtown district. By allowing commingling to go on any longer, the wound it leaves gets deeper and harder to heal, where good bars are punished for good practice.
