I consider my self a pretty observant chap when I'm out and about. Today on my way back home from a fresh haircut I meandered my way through hundreds of college students returning for the new year at Cal. After working up an appetite from all the eye candy I decided to stop at the local grocery store, Andronicos, to pick up something for dinner.
Andronicos is a high end as my friends call it (phroo phroo) grocery store whose sales are not sales at all but rather a mark down to the reasonable. I did a double take when I saw that the majority of their liqueur stock is marked down 40%-50%. Of course I have no beef with a grocery store having a sale, sales are good, so as far as I'm concerned Yee Haa! but then I thought about the timing. Marking down all the liqueur on UC Berkeley's kick off weekend is a smart strategic move on their part from a business point of view, so fair enough. But then something else caught my eye as if making under age drinking easier wasn't enough. Rising out of the center of this huge liqueur display was a goal post with the UC Berkeley banner hanging across it. Now that did disturbed me. Am I making much ado about nothing? Should I not expect corporate conscience to yield to social responsibility? What do you think? I'm I crazy? LOL, don't answer that.
Alcohol related deaths are the second highest cause of death for teens and college students. Personally I've had three friends die from alcohol related circumstances. Two choked on their own vomit and the third fell in the pool and drowned with a dozen or so people only twenty feet away unaware that their friend was drowning. UC Berkeley banned alcohol at school functions, frat/sorority parties etc. because it possed such a problem. Then I learned today through my own research that they lifted the ban.
What message are we sending bringing fire and brimstone down on any one who is guilty of an alcohol related incident where injury or death is involved while at the same time enabling the irresponsible behavior we say we abhor?
I just don't get us sometimes 
New Semester + Marketing divided by Strategic Timing x Cheap Booz = ?
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1I believe the standard response Hypno, is corporations can't be expected to be our conscience. More than one person said in the yard sale thread: buyer beware. I think it's crap, but there you have it.
2I recall several years back when MWF classes became rather unpopular and the campus in NY became somewhat decimated on Fridays. Now I can fully understand why Friday afternoons might be light duty, but it appeared to me that Iwas looking at a significant loss of students on the campus and lethargy in many more.
3Anyway, I was lunching with colleagues and I stated my obervation, and some of them looked at each other and grinned at me, before explaining that the "technique" was for the undergraduate to use Thursday night at the local bar as a stepping stone for the weekend. Refusing to believe it, a few of us went over for drinks after 4:30 on the following Thursday. Lo and behold, it didn't take long for the place to fill up...and it didn't look like they were all 21, although I may not be a great gauge of such.
I learned two things that evening: first, it seemed like the entire university population was planning on being there at some time that evening and second, if you are ever offered a drink called "A Screaming Nazi" (sometimes called A Dead Nazi,) do not accept it.
I find it very odd and deeply disturbing that so many people, college or otherwise, are set on becoming drunk enough so that they will not recognize their hands in front of their faces. It seems like a step up even from what I recall as aggressive drinking behavior of the last century.
I know that drinking is this sociological right of manhood and in some cases sisterhood that will never disappear. Personally I didn't start drinking until I was 26 but I never drank to get wasted I drink for the taste of a good cocktail.
I have some young friends in their early twenties who drink until they're $#!+ faced and the next day they don't remember half of what happened or what they said. I think what's the point of having the experience if you can't remember it.
The times they hang out with me I get over protective because of the losses I've experienced in the past. If some one is drunk and crashing at my place I do not sleep, I will sit up and watch them all night long if I have to. I am just so paranoid that they might throw up in their sleep and suffocate or something.
As for the marketing at Andronicos like I said I don't fault them for taking advantage of the timing but personally I feel that the school banner over the liqueur display is a pointed call to under aged drinkers.
4I see nothing wrong with a sell...a love a sell. I do see something wrong in placing a college add/icon at a liquor display...poor choice but a good business decision. We'd be blind if we thought it took both of these together to get students to think about drinking...that seems to happen no matter what display they check out.
5When I was in college the drinking age in NY was 18. As a rite of passage when you tuned 18, you moved off the corner candy store across the street to the corner bar. Back then a glass of beer was 15 cents, but then the minimum wage was $1/hour. (talk about aging myself)
6I think a 7&7 was 35 cents. That by the way was the mixed drink of choice at the time.
7Hey my dads drink of choice was 7&7. LOL, I remember the night of his funeral we all toasted w/7&7 I took one sip and spit it back out. I don't know how he could drink that stuff.
8hey, you should have at least finished the drink in your dad's memory. I won't have any trouble with my kids, they share my taste in Irish whiskey
9I'm sure a little bit got down, lol.
I'm a dark rum and expensive vodka drinker
10vodka is the 7&7 of this age.
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