The following story should have said that an Evanston liquor ordinance bans people under 21 from bars after midnight.
Student groups must make do as underage attendance at bar nights after midnight remains illegal for at least two more weeks.
The Evanston City Council on Monday postponed an ordinance to make exceptions to last month’s law banning people under 18 from bars after midnight. Aldermen said they needed time to learn more about bar nights and to revise the ordinance, potentially to include a limit to the number of allowed exceptions per year.
“This just got dumped on us without any information,” Ald. Ann Rainey (8th) said. She suggested holding a public hearing to discuss the ordinance.
Ald. Cheryl Wollin (1st), who represents the ward including roughly half of Northwestern’s campus, said she already spoke with NU Associated Student Government representatives, NU administrators and Patrick Casey, who serves on Evanston’s Liquor Control Review Board and is the city’s director of management and budget. ASG representatives said they told Wollin the application process for holding bar nights is rigorous and explained the definition of the event.
All of the aldermen now need to know the information shared with Wollin before the council makes a decision, Rainey said.
“Why fundraising can’t be done like adults do it, from eight to midnight, I don’t know,” she said. “You can raise a hell of a lot of money between eight and midnight.”
Wollin suggested they delay the ordinance for clarification. She said she wants to add a quota for the number of exceptional cases allowed.
The ordinance as written would completely contradict the law passed five weeks ago, Rainey said.
“In my mind what has come before us is a total repeal,” she said. “The license holders of B1, when they read this, they must have thought they’d died and gone to heaven.”
But the Liquor Control Review Board’s Casey said any bar owner’s joy is partly justified. The underage restriction applies to non-NU groups as well. For example, people under 18 cannot attend office parties at a bar, so groups might take their business to other Evanston restaurants or out of the city, he said.
Aldermen are scheduled to return to the ordinance Nov. 28, in the middle of Reading Week.
City Council normally requires aldermen to vote on an issue at least two separate nights – once for introduction and once for a final vote – but Wollin said the amendment could pass in one night if the council reaches a consensus. Suspending the rules to do this would require a unanimous vote.
“This is important enough that we could suspend the rules,” Wollin said. “I know it will be Reading Week.”
ASG’s External Relations Chair Jill Sager said she hopes the council waits to make a decision on the law until after students return from Winter Break.
When the City Council passed the law on Oct. 10 to ban underage people from bars after midnight, student group leaders and ASG executive board members said the action surprised them. Since then they have struggled to produce an amendment allowing underage students to attend bar nights, ASG President Patrick Keenan-Devlin said.
During the last school year, 19 student groups raised money using events at bars. The bars affected include all Evanston restaurants with B1 liquor licenses – Prairie Moon, 1502 Sherman Ave.; The Keg of Evanston, 810 Grove St.; Tommy Nevin’s Pub & Restaurant, 1450 Sherman Ave.; Bill’s Blues, 1029 Davis St.; and 1800 Club, 1800 Sherman Ave.
Sager said she is disappointed with the delay but feels it will allow ASG and student groups enough time to completely explain the definition and purpose of bar nights to aldermen.
But Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th), whose ward includes the other half of NU’s campus, said the council has already heard the students’ opinions.
“I think everybody knows the students’ stance on the issue,” Tisdahl said. “The issue is pretty clear.”
The DAILY’s Lee S. Ettleman contributed to this report.
Reach Elizabeth Gibson at [email protected].
