A University of Ottawa (U of O) draft policy limiting alcohol service on campus has been scrapped and sent to student consultation after the university’s student federation found it hard to swallow.
The draft of the policy included a ban on shots and shooters and a limit for serving beer pitchers only to groups of three or more.
“The response has been pretty strong against [the draft policy],” said Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) president Ethan Plato.
“The university recognized the immense pressure that was placed on it by students,” he said.
Because of this, Plato said the draft will begin again from scratch, this time in full consultation with the student federation and other interested parties.
“Our commitment is to start over, with a very collaborative approach involving all of our partners,” university spokesperson Patrick Charette said.
The last draft was wiped off the table because it was misinterpreted and would not have made sense for the university, Charette said.
“We are commending the university that they’re back to the normal procedure, which is making sure that they consult with students for releasing any policies or modifying any policies that affect students on campus,” said SFUO vice-president (finance) Adam Gilani.
The new policy needs to respect the intelligence and autonomy of students on campus, Gilani said.
“What we do not want to see is the university trying to control how student businesses operate,” he said.
SFUO owns and operates one bar on campus, called 1848.
“The purpose is to review and update, where appropriate, our policy governing alcohol on campus,” Charette said.
He called the previous policy, which is from 1975, outdated.
“This policy already applies to all members of the University of Ottawa community on campus, including students, faculty and staff, visitors and guests and any licensed establishments that lease commercial space on campus property,” he said. “The scope of the revised policy will stay the same.”
“I do believe that the university has a right to control, in part, student businesses that operate on campus,” fourth-year U of O student Nick Giardini said. “The university administration is responsible for what happens on their campus.”
“However, I personally believe that student spaces shouldn’t be able to be controlled by the university, especially without consent,” he said.
“It reflects maturity on the part of the administration that they would scrap the plans due to the backlash.”
Giardini said that, with the university’s downtown location, if students were limited alcohol at the university they could easily go off campus, hurting on-campus bars’ revenue.
“Students looking to drink as they did before could simply choose to go to any of these other bars,” he said.
