Does This Look Like The Face Of An Evanston, Illinois Politician Hellbent On Banning Beirut, aka "Beer Pong"?
Patch - A member of the Evanston City Council is proposing a ban on beer pong and any other games that involve alcohol when in view of neighbors or passersby.
Ald. Judy Fiske, whose 1st Ward surrounds the campus of Northwestern University, placed a discussion of an ordinance banning beer pong on the agenda of Monday's Human Service Committee meeting.
"There have been complaints about Evanston residents playing beer pong and other games involving alcohol consumption in their front yards in full view of their neighbors and the public way," according to a memo from Assistant City Attorney Brian George, who declined through a spokesperson to provide any available information about the number or locations of such complaints.
Fiske recommends the City Council review the municipal code of the borough of Belmar, New Jersey and consider using it as a "possible template" for a similar prohibition in Evanston, according to George's memo.
The Belmar ordinance forbids any "game or contest that involves as an element of the said game or contest the consumption or use of an alcohol beverage" if it can be viewed from streets, sidewalks or neighboring properties. The ban includes front yards, side yards, porches and decks.
But Fiske's proposed beer pong ban would be the first to regulate non-commercial alcohol consumption by adults on private property.
Fiske has faced criticism from Northwestern students in the past for her support of the city's so-called "brothel law" or "three-unrelated rule." The ordinance makes it technically illegal for three non-family members to live in one housing unit, and tenants have alleged it contributes to unaffordable rents and exploitation by unscrupulous landlords.
Fiske did not immediately respond to questions about her proposal Monday, including how many complaints she had fielded from constituents and whether she envisioned Evanston police enforcing the beer pong ban. Any response received will be added here.
Few things here.
1- To answer my own question, yes it absolutely does look like a lady that would try to ban drinking games of all sorts. It looks like the face of a miserable old woman who realizes her life has passed her by, that's been in a loveless marriage for 20 years and severely needs to be laid, and whose sole mission in life is to make everybody else as miserable as she is. She's basically the female grinch is what I'm saying.
2- I thought this was America?
You're going to now try to enforce what people can and can't do on private property lady? Listen, I get that you can't have all those wild and crazy Northwestern kids running around Evanston with High Noon's in their hands drinking on sidewalks on their way to Ryan Field. But to now try to encroach on their private property now too? What the fuck is your problem?
Will always love the complaints of people that choose to move to college towns, buy or rent property near campuses, and then act like the school fell from the sky next to where they live and act appalled that kids act like kids. Northwestern has only been around since 1851 so I get it. Almost as good as the looney tunes that live near Wrigley Field and complain every alderman meeting about the music being too loud.
3- You know those urban legends you always hear on Big 10 or SEC school campuses about the olden day "brothel laws"? Well turns out it's not an urban legend. This lady actually pushed it through in Evanston -
Fiske has faced criticism from Northwestern students in the past for her support of the city's so-called "brothel law" or "three-unrelated rule." The ordinance makes it technically illegal for three non-family members to live in one housing unit, and tenants have alleged it contributes to unaffordable rents and exploitation by unscrupulous landlords.
What a sad, sad lady.
4- I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I could at least see the point of this proposed ban on drinking games if it was to prevent the spread of covid (ping pong balls being thrown in beers and drinking them) but there is zero mention of that in her proposal. It's strictly a nuisance issue to her.
Who will be Northwestern's Hoover and step up to this tyrant?
p.s. - miss me with the "it's called beer pong, not beirut bro" bullshit. It's called what the people that invented it called it. End of debate.
A version of beer pong involving paddles reportedly originated at fraternities at Dartmouth University in the 1950s. Both Bucknell and Lehigh universities in Pennsylvania claim the paddle-less version — also known as "throw pong" and "Beirut" — was invented at their schools. The 15th annual World Series of Beer Pong was postponed earlier this year due to the coronavirus.
p.p.s. - for our Massachusetts readers, to put Evanston into context -