Culture Night Crackdown
Era Of ‘All You Can Drink’ Nights Comes to a Close
The Concordia Student Union will be scaling down its “all you can drink” culture nights, citing safety concerns as a factor behind the decision.
In the fall of 2009, the CSU began hosting bimonthly culture nights where students would enjoy the food and drink of a certain country or culture.
Until now, the culture nights—which take place at Loyola Campus’ The Hive—operated on a flat rate system, where students could drink as much alcohol as they wanted after paying their five dollar entrance fee.
“It came to our attention that the CSU were advertising the culture nights as an all you can drink event,” said Chris Mota, a spokesperson for Concordia University. “Now there were a number of problems with that. First of all, it’s a dangerous idea at best. People have died from alcohol poisoning at these kinds of events. Second, it’s illegal.”
According to division two, article four of Quebec’s Regulation respecting promotion, advertising and educational programs related to alcoholic beverages, it is illegal to advertise an event that “induces a person to consume alcohol in an irresponsible manner.”
CSU VP Student Life Andreas Lopez, who is organizing a culture night that will take place on Wednesday, has been working with Concordia Security’s event analyst Luc Fillion to make the event safer.“Students will wear wrist bands and every time they get a drink we will make a mark on the wrist band,” said Lopez at a CSU Council meeting. “A CSU representative will be serving drinks and we won’t serve to anyone who is too drunk […] we will also be taking breaks. For a few 45 minute periods throughout the night, we won’t serve alcohol.”
A residence advisor attending the meeting said that last year’s culture nights made life difficult for him, as he often had to attend to sick, intoxicated students who would stumble back from the events to their dorm.“We’re not trying to shut down the party,” said Mota of the increased security measures. “We just want to make sure it’s safe.”
The theme of Wednesday’s culture night is Canada. Students will be served beer, rye, shepherd’s pie and poutine.
