The meeting last month that decided a price floor for alcohol in College Park’s bars was called in response to pressure on county and state legislators, city officials said.
The City of College Park hosted a meeting between bar owners, elected officials, police officers, representatives of the county liquor board, university officials and student leaders to discuss the Thirsty Turtle’s 25-cent rail drinks, city Public Services Director Bob Ryan said.
Ryan said state Sens. Jim Rosapepe and Paul Pinsky and Prince George’s County Councilman Eric Olson received “concerns” the low prices may be encouraging students to excessive or binge drinking, but the three legislators could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The bar owners then “voluntarily agreed” to a $1 minimum charge for a shot, mixed drink or 16-ounce beer, as suggested at the meeting by R.J. Bentley’s owner John Brown, Ryan said.
Neither Brown nor the other bar owners at the meeting would comment for this story.
But although city officials have stressed that the price floor was purely voluntary, a sign that had been posted at the Thirsty Turtle explaining the new high prices suggested that the city had forced their decision.
Ryan said any pressure put on the Thirsty Turtle was not from the city, but from the state legislators – whom city officials said promised to legislate an alcohol price floor if one was not reached voluntarily – and from the owners of other bars.
“Some business owners thought a quarter a beer was unreasonable and irresponsible,” Ryan said. “It was peer pressure, where responsible business owners put pressure on other business owners.”
Ryan said he could not speculate as to why the bar owners would agree to raise prices if the lower prices had been better for their business, but did say he thought they might have fewer liability risks with fewer binge-drinking patrons.
City officials said there were four or five students at the meeting who were invited by the university, including representatives from the Interfraternity Council and the Pan-Hellenic Council, the university’s fraternity and sorority organizations. Those organizations could not be reached for comment.
College Park City Manager Joe Nagro, who was also at the meeting, said while some of the students pointed out that they appreciated the low alcohol prices, they were understanding of safety concerns.
However, university Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Warren Kelley, who is the head of the university’s Alcohol Task Force and who attended the meeting, said he was concerned that some students didn’t appreciate the reasons behind the price floor.
“I was a student once and I was poor, and I was always happy to get things cheaper,” he said. “But we have a lot of evidence that cheap, cheap alcohol leads to a lot of problems.”
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