The pregame gamble

It’s 10:30 p.m. on a Friday night in Chapel Hill, a time when Franklin Street used to swarm with students.

But the night out has not yet begun. Instead, groups of students gather in residence halls, apartments and Greek houses — the new scenes for drinking.

“Pregaming has definitely become more of a part of the social drinking culture,” said Fleming Fuller, general manager of He’s Not Here, a popular bar in Chapel Hill.

Fuller said the peak time for students to show up at He’s Not gets later every year, moving from 10:30 p.m. in past years to midnight — a sign that drinking frequently happens more at home than at bars.

He said pregaming has affected local bars, noting that alcohol sales have decreased for businesses in town.

But the rise of pregaming poses a problem larger than a drop in sales, Fuller said, because these parties offer opportunities for students to consume immense amounts of alcohol without supervision.

The circumstances surrounding the death of UNC freshman David Shannon, who fell to his death on Oct. 27, have called into question the ill effects of pregaming.

Though the autopsy has not yet been released, police have said alcohol might have been a contributing factor in Shannon’s death. He was last seen at a pregame party on McCauley Street the night of Oct. 26.

In general, Fuller said, pregames and bars are fundamentally different. He stressed that, at bars, sober bartenders are the ones making decisions about who can and cannot drink more — not fellow partiers.

“That’s the situation you don’t have at pregame parties,” he said. “Honestly, it would be better if pregaming didn’t exist.”

Sgt. Josh Mecimore, spokesman for Chapel Hill police, said if alcohol was a factor in Shannon’s death, it should serve as a warning for students.

“It’s a terrible situation, but if any good can come out of it, maybe that’s the good,” Mecimore said. “I think people are aware of the dangers, but I think it’s human nature to assume it’s not going to happen to you, that it’s going to happen to someone else and you’re somehow immune to the negative effects of drugs and alcohol.”

Since 2006, the department has charged 52 people with providing underage drinkers with alcohol.

The town’s Alcohol Law Enforcement Response Team aims to address underage drinking, which formed in 2010, by focusing solely on regulating alcohol violations.

Sgt. Rob Roy, who oversees the program, said the biggest problem it faces is cracking down on underage students using fake identification.

“It goes hand-in-hand with college life, unfortunately,” Roy said. “You see a lot of fake IDs. That’s a huge problem we have.”

Kellie Mannette, an adjunct professor who works in the UNC Juvenile Justice Clinic, said N.C. General Statute 18B-302 specifies that supplying alcohol to someone under the age of 21 is a class one misdemeanor.

“When you’re in college, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know anyone who hasn’t been charged with an alcohol violation,” she said.

She added that the law states that if people who are of legal age to drink supervise the underage consumption of alcohol, they may be held liable if injuries occur as a result of overconsumption.

Dean Blackburn, assistant dean of students, said pregame parties have increased in the past 10 years because police and administrators have gotten better at enforcing alcohol laws.

“It may be a combination of less access and more costs that lead to early and heavy overconsumption before they go out,” Blackburn said, referencing the rising price of alcohol.

He added that in 1996, UNC adjusted its alcohol policy from a directly punitive policy to one that acknowledged violations could stem from a personal problem with alcohol abuse.

The University reviewed its alcohol policy again last year, he said, and selected a more case-by-case approach that stems from a public health perspective.

“In that process it looks at the fact that there may be a lot of factors why a student may receive an alcohol policy violation,” he said.

UNC currently offers a one-building living-learning community for students who wish to live in substance-free environments, after downsizing from two buildings in January.

Chancellor Holden Thorp said the single largest issue facing higher education is the mental health of students, and it’s the thing that keeps chancellors up at night most often.

“I can remember the names of all the students who died, but I can’t necessarily remember all the other problems we’ve had,” he said.

In 2008, a movement called the Amethyst Initiative rekindled a national conversation about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.

College presidents from more than 100 universities, including Duke University President Richard Brodhead, supported the movement, believing a lower drinking age would result in more control of on-campus drinking.

At the time of the discussion, Thorp stated he did not support the initiative and said he maintains the same stance today.

“There are other 18-to 20-year-old people in the country besides college students,” he said. “Just because it’s a problem for universities doesn’t mean we should be arrogant enough to say that the whole country should sacrifice its public health to solve our problems.”

In their own efforts to control underage drinking, national chapters of fraternities and sororities have also tried to change the rules.

Aaron Bachenheimer, director of fraternity and sorority life and community involvement, said about 25 years ago, there was a significant shift in the social expectations of fraternities and sororities.

National chapters were concerned about the high expense of insuring their members, so they looked at areas where they could reduce potential legal liabilities, which he said meant eliminating the use of common-source alcohol during recruitment.

He added that the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life and the Interfraternity Council have incorporated the national policies into UNC’s recruitment policy at least as far back as 2006.

“However, it seems to have only been in the last several years that a strong and concerted effort to eliminate alcohol from all aspects of the recruitment period and from within the fraternity houses during recruitment has taken hold and been enforced, and even so we still face challenges with off-campus parties that are much harder to monitor,” he said.

“It puts our students at a greater risk. It’s taking them farther and farther away from campus, they’re consuming alcohol in an unknown location — they’re walking or driving. There’s a greater risk of them receiving citations.”

Back on campus, the alcohol policy of the Department of Housing and Residential Education reflects state and national laws.

Katie Bartholomew, assistant director of housing for North Campus communities said that, during the past three years, violations of the alcohol policy have ranged from 200 to 225 per year.

“We try to take a very proactive and educational approach to safety and security in our halls,” she said.

Students who are caught violating alcohol policy are sent to the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) program, a preventative alcohol abuse intervention program.

Natalie Rich, a BASICS counselor, said the program is divided into two stages — a group discussion and an individual one-on-one session where students talk about their experiences with alcohol and learn about the associated risks.

Rich, who is a graduate student in the Gillings School of Global Public Health, said freshmen students and those who participate in Greek life are at the highest risk of alcohol consumption.

“I know that college students drink more than non-college students of the same age range,” Rich said. “If you’re looking at it from that perspective it can be viewed as a problem … It’s really about assessing the risks involved related to student drinking and looking at our college campus,” she said.

“Obviously, college students are drinking more than students who are not in college, so why is that?”

Senior Stuart Poplin said Chapel Hill offers an interesting social drinking scene because local bars cater to specific demographics.

He added that pregaming is a central part of UNC’s drinking culture.

“If it’s done correctly, it’s a very good thing. People will remember those college nights more than any class, any professor, any academic part. The social things you do in college are the ones you remember.”

Contact the desk editor at university@dailytarheel.com.