Last week, Ohio University President Roderick McDavis met with local bar owners in an attempt to persuade them not to open before Saturday's 10 a.m. Homecoming Parade. McDavis' proposal was flawed from the beginning because it gave bar owners nowhere near enough time to change plans and gave them no incentive to open later anyway. It is insulting to the owners, as well as to Athens residents and visiting alumni, that McDavis felt it was his duty to impose his wishes on local businesses in such a brazen manner. McDavis' conduct in the matter is a poor representation of his administration.
Even if the flawed underpinnings of McDavis' decision are ignored, the execution of his plan was unprofessional. Most of those establishments had been advertising early Homecoming opening hours for some time. For McDavis to approach the owners mere days prior to such an anticipated event is ridiculous. Either McDavis made his decision impulsively last week or he cared so little about it that he failed to plan ahead. McDavis himself said at a Thursday press conference that he was aware his plea was a little late. In either case, he should have used better judgment and aborted the idea altogether.
The spontaneity of McDavis' request leads to the conclusion that the move was no more than a superficial public relations gesture. McDavis' hard-line stance on abusive drinking is not without its merits, he went overboard this time. McDavis' unreasonable request was a mistake, with the OU president overstepping his bounds by attempting to force his will on the city of Athens. It is pretty apparent that this was simply an attempt to bolster McDavis' image as a hardliner against student alcohol abuse.
Homecoming also is not the ideal event to take a stand against student drinking. Anyone Uptown during the weekend is likely to have witnessed alumni, parents and entire families drinking. A potentially more pragmatic solution would have been for McDavis to offer bar owners an incentive to open later - possibly his recent $41,250 bonus. Without such motivation, bar owners did as they should have and denied his request.
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Bar-hours request ill-conceived
