2020 Election
Liquor Sales Surge as Students Drink Through Election Week
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Collegetown’s liquor stores saw an uptick in sales through election week.
The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/alcohol/)
Collegetown’s liquor stores saw an uptick in sales through election week.
Although national alcohol sales have sharply increased in the past weeks, Ithaca liquor stores are reporting differing results.
“Ever heard of beer, bro?”
American drinking culture, especially male drinking culture, is seriously flawed. No matter what anyone may say, there is an implicit pressure on young adults to consider drinking a fun pastime with no serious consequences. The explicit pressure is largely nonexistent, but the status quo, especially in Greek life, encourages drinking. Our worldview is to see drinking as innocuous. If someone chooses to abstain from alcohol, that choice is accepted — but usually with reluctance and without in-depth consideration of the reasons behind their abstinence.
From Marg Mondays to Fishbowls on Wednesdays, there seems to be a drink for every night of the week. That being said, bar culture has transformed into blackout culture among Cornellians, with pregaming becoming more and more popular while the idea of meeting up for a beer or two being considered taboo or just plain boring.
As advocates of a safer social scene for more than five years, Cayuga’s Watchers greatly appreciates the sentiment of Panhellenic President Maya Cutforth’s ’20 efforts to improve event safety. We were founded in 2012 at a similarly pivotal moment, in the wake of another senseless student death. Cayuga’s Watchers positioned itself as a uniquely student-driven response to an intractable national crisis — the normalization of high-risk alcohol use and insufficient safety measures at collegiate parties. Our goal has never been to stop partying, but to instead educate and promote safer behaviors throughout Cornell’s vast social scene, building partnerships and only ever showing up when we are invited. The mandates proposed by Cutforth would see trained employees of Cayuga’s Watchers required at every event hosted by a fraternity.
Though alcohol-soaked Halloween parties play into Cornell’s weekend traditions, students choose to abstain for a variety of reasons. Some students are not drinking on this holiday because they are recovering from an Alcohol Use Disorder.
The weary Friday sun sets on Libe Slope, and Cornell’s alter ego emerges as the night falls. Slews of students trade in their books for beer, marking the paradigm shift from the intellectual atmosphere of day to the Collegetown mosh pits of night. The pregame, party, hangover cycle starts anew as the academic weekday Jekyll morphs into the partying weekend Hyde. Our campus is many things — from an intellectual community to a research powerhouse (or whatever else the admissions brochures say) — but come nightfall, we must accept our nocturnal reality as a party school. A turn-on for some, a red flag for others, the label exists.
Three Ithaca businesses were caught selling alcohol to underage customers in an undercover sting operation conducted by the New York State Liquor Authority on Friday, July 27.
“The amount of grain that you use and the amount of water that you use to cook the grain, has an impact on how much sugar you get in the solution before it’s fermented into alcohol; that is directly related to the alcohol content of the final beer,” Bershaw said.
On Oct. 23, The Sun’s headline read “Near-Naked Cornell Runner Attacks 2 Women, Threatens to Rape Them After Taking ‘Acid.’”
I remember reading that. I released an exasperated puff and thought to myself, “I cannot believe that this happens at Cornell.” As I pondered it more, however, I realized, obviously this happens at Cornell. In fact, I’m surprised (but grateful), we haven’t seen worse. We live in a world of athletes dropping acid and stumbling bleary-eyed around parties preying on freshman girls.