Student representatives have defended the decision to hold an A-level results party in Queen’s Students’ Union on Thursday night. In the same week certain nightclubs and bars throughout the province have been criticised for offering cut-price alcohol promotions to school leavers, and Social Development Minister Alex Attwood has expressed wishes to introduce controls on drinks promos, the Union offered 3 for £5 on selected drinks at the Speakeasy Bar. According to the official Queen’s Students’ Union Bars Facebook page, ‘What better way to get a handle of life as a student?’
BY CONNOR DALY
VP Community Jay Downs stated that the Union “heavily condemns” binge drinking and any bar or nightclub that may entice school leavers to drink irresponsibly. Contrasting recently blasted ‘All you can drink’ promotions with the Students’ Union’s offer, Downs maintained that the 3 for £5 promotion on Thursday night at the SU does not encourage young men and women to drink large amounts of alcohol. In addition, Downs stated that the Union has a “duty of care” and that bar staff are ordered not to serve drink to intoxicated customers. VP Welfare Adam McGibbon also claimed that Queen’s Students’ Union has the highest proportion of security staff to customers in all of South Belfast’s bars and nightclubs.
According to the Queen’s Students’ Union’s Alcohol Policy: “When students engage in high risk drinking, academic performance, health, personal relationships and safety can suffer.” VP Education Nathan Anderson, however, denied that the Speakeasy’s offers encouraged excessive drinking. Anderson claimed that “tensions will always arise” when planning similar events. He stated that the Union “attracts anyone”, students and non-students, and “it’s not a member’s club”. Anderson described the Students’ Union as “a business, a service, and also a union”, and added that here in Northern Ireland “drinking is just a part of the culture”.
The Union’s Alcohol Policy states: “Queen’s Students’ Union has a significant commercial element and, as such, will be required to promote its events to its students and other regular users.” Promoting business, this same Alcohol Policy states that the organisation “uses its internal mechanisms such as posters, flyers, and chalkboards. It also uses alternative communication means such as Queen’s Radio, SUTV and “Student Stuff””. It is, however, unlikely that many disincentives of irresponsible drinking have been advertised via SUTV, given that QUB students are still without access to this forum, and the future of the facility remains clouded by uncertainty.
VP Welfare Adam McGibbon pointed out that everyone attending Thursday’s party would be over 18 years of age and thus of legal age to consume alcohol and avail of the drinks promotions.
VP Campaigns and Communications Fiona Kidd and Student Union Director Andrew Dodge were unavailable for comment.
Maybe those who actually run and profit from the S.U. bars should contemplate the unthinkable, stop taking any manner of form of renumeration in the form of expenses…
The money could then be reinvested in revamping not only the bars but the whole mentality of a S.U. sponsored drinking culture which doesn`t reflect the attitude of the majority of Queens students. Who vote with their feet, some through conviction many more simply because the S.U. doesn`t offer a relaxing alternative to the culture of drink…
But then this is the job of those paid to run the S.U. and instead of being an unwelcoming little self serving elite, they should for once act in the interests of the whole Queens student population and not those small unrepresentative cabals that elected them!
Will this happen or are the present S.U. representatives capable of thinking outside of the “box” time will tell but I believe there is more of finding that the Moon is made of cream cheeses.
Sorry, the last paragraph should read:
Will this happen or are the present S.U. representatives capable of thinking outside of the “box” time will tell but I believe there is more chance of finding that the Moon is made of cream cheese.
haha,
saw Catherine Wylies little letter in the Irish News on saturday. Give it up love! your bitterness towards the union isn’t gonna convince people that they are an evil megacorporation hell bent on blinding students to their nasty ways.
hopefully this years students don’t get too bored of the gowns constant whinging!
btw i hear nobody showed up to this “party” and thats why the only way you can get your “story” any attention is through letters columns.
The cheek of her! Can’t BELIEVE she’d do that. WITCH!
That Wylie is always annoying people and saying things that spark debate. CRUCIFY HER.
Wylie is a total lad and you know it. End of. I would never tire of hearing her opinions. In fact, I quite often adopt them as my own.
The reaction to this is way over the top! First of all approximately eleven customers entered the doors of Speakeasy on the night of A Level results. Secondly the Three for Five deal is not something new- it was on offer on a Thursday night Mandela for a number of years (up until last year), is on offer on selected drinks every saturday in Bar Sub as well as the new Ragnarock night, so why only now has a fuss been kicked up about it? For a newspaper this isn’t particularly news.
In answer to a few other comments:
- 3 for 5 being worse than all you can drink promos, in a word ridiculous. Firstly it isn’t all you can drink for £25, it’s £20 and has been proposed it be lowered to £15 in The Kremlin.
-The Union as a business- why is this a bad thing?
Ultimately no matter what drink offers are in place the responsibility is on the person who is drinking. If they don’t know when to say when, they are to blame, not the drinking establishment.
Selling drinks in 3s encourages students to buy alcohol in bulk. That’s effectively what a 3 for a 5er offer is. bulk buying alcohol results in a binge a lot of the time. There needs to be something done about the extent of binge drinking in UK and Ireland. It really is ridiculous. I don’t think The Gown’s main point here is the 3 for a 5er offer, but instead the fact that it was in aid of A-level students. Cue the Union reps to say, “So what?”
Three for a fiver has never encouraged me to drink three drinks really quickly, just you go for roudns with your friends. Parlour does it as well and as htey are so close, the union needs to be competitive. Also all the posters clearly state that it was over 18s only and ID was required.
there’s no problem with the Union making money. The sooner everyone accepts the union is a business and like all other businesses its main motive is making money, the sooner we will all have become adults and not idealistic children.
The only reason for their existence (again like all other businesses) is to make a profit – what is wrong with that?
But that’s the thing – they aren’t like every other business. The money that students spend there can be turned straight round into providing facilities and support services for those same students. Avoiding the contradiction of the sensible drinking stuff, the SU still provides help for those struggling with class, dodgy landlords and more, as well as employing primarily students. It’s not like big profits equal big end-of-year bonuses!
Whereas pumping money into other bars just makes more profit for their owners. Remind me again why the SU is always the target here?
Not only does the Union put profit before people, they put profit before students…and as far as I can remember it’s a Students’ Union…isn’t it?
Also, the recent changing of ‘general manager’ to ‘director’ in the job description of Andrew Dodge just stinks of this whole “Union is a business, get over it” notion.
Don’t accept this. PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT. Always!
Best comment on this board McCann. Well said.