Every spring Athens residents and students might notice a few traditions. Spring cleaning, Palmerfest, the time change disturbance and more tow trucks. The city pays its three parking enforcement officers overtime to check cars parked on the street for unpaid parking tickets, commonly referred to as the Spring Roundup. Cars on the tow list can be taken in and cost the owner a fee of $75 plus the cost of the unpaid tickets. The city issues about 72,000 citations each year and currently there are more than 5,000 outstanding tickets.
The roundup works well for the city and keeps drivers from completely disregarding tickets and parking laws. With the parking problems that already exist, the city must do everything it can to keep the situation from deteriorating into a free-for-all.
There are 760 parking meters in Athens. There are about 20,000 students and faculty combined on campus every day. Without fear of being towed, students and faculty could very well end up in fistfights for Uptown parking spaces.
The collections also serve as a means of revenue for the city. Last year Athens collected $17,000, which more than covered the officers' overtime. The city also should take some of that money and work toward updating the police's 1992 parking enforcement computer so officials can send courtesy letters to those drivers with outstanding tickets. But, while some drivers might have received tickets when their cars were lent to friends, the truth remains most drivers know they have outstanding tickets.
Ohio University's campus is not large enough to warrant such a problem. The major campus haunts are all within walking or biking distance. Students also have access to several forms of public transportation. Complaints about parking costs in a city like Athens, where most tickets range from $5 to $10, seem minute compared to the $8 or $9 a day it costs college students to park in most major cities, such as Columbus.
Pre-gaming at the Statehouse
In fall, game day starts for many football fans at about 9 a.m. They go through a gamut of pre-game rituals that could include anything from a series of superstitions to elaborate face painting. Then many fans get fired up by heading to their local sports team's parking lot to partake in the grilled and fried feasts and cold beer consumption known as tailgating.
However, it might shock many sports fans to know that the long-standing tradition is illegal in Ohio. Because of state liquor laws, tailgaters are required to obtain a liquor permit to drink on public property.
But thankfully the Ohio General Assembly is working on a law that would create a new liquor permit allowing all tailgaters to drink in fenced-off areas. It would eliminate the need for city and college sports fans to go through special means to tailgate. At Ohio University, tailgaters submit a request for a permit to Luke Sayers, marketing coordinator for Ohio Athletics, who then passes it along to Baker Center officials for approval. Tailgaters are loaned a tent with one exit and entrance, cutting them off from other tailgaters.
Critics of the bill say it encourages drinking. The Ohio College Initiative to Reduce High Risk Drinking, a group of 42 colleges and universities trying to reduce campus drinking, is the main opponent of the bill. The initiative, chaired by OU President Robert Glidden, has argued that tailgating sends the wrong message to students.
This criticism does not hold water. In the past few months the state legislature and Athens City Council have taken almost a Puritan approach to campus drinking. On the city level we have seen the passage of the controversial nuisance party law and an ordinance to crack down on garbage left by large parties. The state legislature is permitting colleges and universities to take away students' financial aid if convicted of rioting, which could be defined as simply as four people littering.
The message from city to campus to state is crystal clear.
Making tailgating more convenient is not going to lead to more or less student drinking. Drinking has and always will be a part of sports. If fans aren't able to drink outside the stadium they will just do it at home. And at least allowing Bobcat fans to bond and drink before the game might help dull the pain caused by the disappointing product on the field.
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