One year ago, Santa Clara County passed a social host ordinance which would fine home and property owners whenever underage drinking occurs on their premises. Stanford was granted a one-year exemption so that the county could consider whether the Stanford campus falls under the jurisdiction of the ordinance. With the court\u2019s decision soon to come, the Editorial Board believes the ordinance\u2019s language should be rewritten to accommodate Stanford\u2019s unique situation, rather than risk possible harm to students by extending the ordinance to campus.<\/p>\n
The University was originally exempt from the ordinance because of the campus alcohol policy and its success in preventing harm to students. This policy remains effective across campus. While proponents of the ordinance may cite a slight rise in the number of arrests and Minor-in-Possession offenses in the past year as reason to extend the law to Stanford, these numbers must be tempered with the realization that the police presence on campus has substantially increased in the last year. The University\u2019s policies have proven themselves effective, and thus an additional ordinance on the campus would not be of any significant benefit to the campus population.<\/p>\n
The risks, however, posed by the additional ordinance threaten the safe and open environment the University Alcohol Policy has worked thus far to promote. Extending the ordinance would indicate that Santa Clara County law enforcement would be present on campus in addition to the Stanford University police force. While not threatening in any physical sense, student reaction would most likely take the form of pushing drinking underground and behind closed doors. This danger is what was envisioned when the University Alcohol Policy was crafted as an open environment where safety is the utmost concern. The presence of additional law enforcement has the potential to disturb the safe campus atmosphere. The University policy succeeds in that it is, in most cases, non-punitive and more concerned with the health and well-being of the student population. This goal would be lost beneath the more punitive mindset of the county ordinance. If Stanford is going to be fined every time one of its students is caught drinking under age, then financial and legal concerns may drive Stanford back into the days of being an officially dry campus. In such an environment, campus drinking would almost certainly become more secretive, extreme and, above all, dangerous.<\/p>\n
This is not a plea to waive the legal severity of underage drinking for Stanford students, but rather, a consideration of what will truly keep the well-being of students at the forefront of alcohol policy. The ordinance itself was not written with Stanford in mind, nor has the past year somehow changed the meaning of the ordinance or the atmosphere of Stanford. Until the University policy is, in some way, failing or endangering the student body, it is best to stay with what is working. Rather than renew the question of Stanford\u2019s exemption annually, the wording of the ordinance should be clarified to exclude the institution of Stanford. In this case, the letter of the law would better match the spirit of the law that did not have Stanford in mind in the first place. The Editorial Board urges representatives of Stanford and the County of Santa Clara to consider these issues before making a decision that will have negative consequences on the safety and health of Stanford students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One year ago, Santa Clara County passed a social host ordinance which would fine home and property owners whenever underage drinking occurs on their premises. Stanford was granted a one-year exemption so that the county could consider whether the Stanford campus falls under the jurisdiction of the ordinance. With the court\u2019s decision soon to come, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2719,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}