Fraternities need to be alcohol-free by December, but consumption is not expected to decrease, and parties will simply move off campus into the surrounding neighborhood, according to local convenience store employees, students and University officials.
Anne Leavitt, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students, said no one expects greek members to stop drinking.
“We’re not asking the greek chapters to never have alcohol,” she said.
Leavitt said the intention of the policy is just to move parties out of greek houses to official off-campus greek functions, where alcohol can be more tightly monitored.
One local business is already noticing a change in student party habits. Neighbors Bourbon Street Lounge, a bar located a few blocks east of campus, started selling 13.2 gallon kegs of beer — a quantity slightly less than a traditional half-barrel keg — in March.
Neighbors Manager Matt Bjerke said keg sales at his bar have picked up recently.
“We sell five to 10 kegs a week,” Bjerke said, “which is a lot, considering most people don’t throw keggers.”

This trend, he said, may point to an increase in off-campus parties.
Current Greek Life policies don’t allow members to buy kegs or even have them in chapter houses, but the guidelines are under revision because existing rules often confuse students, Leavitt said.

Off-campus partying
Many fraternity members said the University’s policy will just cause them to move the parties out of their houses and into the neighborhood.
“We’re always going to drink,” Pi Kappa Alpha member Jake Haworth said. “All this means is we can’t drink here.”
Haworth’s opinion was evidently shared by greek members at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. WSU’s administration banned alcohol from fraternities in late 1996, but the problem didn’t go away.
John Sherman, city supervisor for the city of Pullman, said the ban created unforeseen problems off-campus.
Sherman said fraternities would rent “party houses” close to campus to continue throwing parties with alcohol. The rentals generated many community complaints, and one house was bulldozed in 1998 just to prevent greek members from drinking there.
“Obviously, saying that you’re dry and being dry are two different things,” he said.

Preventing drunken driving
With University greek members planning to move parties off campus, some area residents said the city might see more drunken driving by greek members returning home inebriated after partying.
“I think (off-campus parties) are going to happen, and they’ll just put the public at risk by drinking and driving,” said Sue McGuire, who owns the Alder Street Market at East 11th Avenue near fraternities.
Theta Chi member Wes Wallis said members rarely drive to parties, though members of the dry house currently leave campus every time they drink.
“If we leave a party,” Wallis said, “we’ll walk back drunk.”
In Pullman, after greek members throw parties off campus, they often walk home rather than get behind the wheel, according to Pullman police.
In 1997, the police department for the city of Pullman logged 196 counts of driving under the influence. Numbers have remained at that level since then, except in 1998 when the total dropped 25 percent, then returned to previous levels the next year.
“Most the parties were all within easy walking distance,” Sherman said.
Greek members like Theta Chi member John Duley agree that off-campus parties will become the norm as the University’s greek system goes entirely dry. Many members said they refuse to go to parties that aren’t within walking distance — they’re just not as convenient.
Duley and his fraternity brothers have learned to live with the rules of a dry house. Groups of them usually grab six-packs at the local market and drink at houses of members, called “live-outs,” who live off campus.
Local stores expect their alcohol sales to remain steady, another indication, some say, that greek members are choosing parties within walking distance of their homes.
Hilyard Street Market employee Nick Podesta estimates that students in the greek system buy 25 percent of the alcohol sold at his store.
Podesta said he doesn’t expect the ban to change how fraternity members party.
“That won’t stop them,” said. “They’ll just drink where they feel like drinking.”