Nicholls encourages responsible drinking through its sale of alcohol on campus, both in the Colonel’s Retreat and at events.

Alcohol has been sold to students of legal drinking age for many years in the Colonel’s Retreat, the grille and sports bar located inside Bollinger Student Union.

According to Brandie Toups, Director of Bollinger Student Union, most campuses around the country have some sort of on-campus restaurant that serves alcohol.

“It’s very common for university campuses to have some sort of pub or place where it’s designated for alcohol sales,” Toups said, “it’s a common practice on college campuses.”

University Police Chief Craig Jaccuzzo said that when alcohol is added to a situation, the level of police concern is always greater. Alcohol becomes another variable to deal with when a situation occurs.

Even with alcohol being more readily available to students from the Colonel’s Retreat and at sporting events, Jaccuzzo said there is no history of situations where alcohol is the main
contributing factor.

“We like our students to enjoy what the campus has to offer, so if the university becomes a little more open with why students go to other places and legally can consume alcohol, we try to offer that on campus,” Jaccuzzo said. “We’d rather them be here than on the outskirts of the university.”

Tyler Knowles, Director of Ticket Operations and Marketing, said that the sale of alcohol at sporting events was originally put in place to boost revenue. Alcohol had already been sold at baseball games for ten years, but started in 2011 with football and this past year with basketball.

“It was a move to generate revenue, some extra money that we needed for athletics We also saw an increase of attendance,” Knowles said.

Selling alcohol at football games helped to draw people in from the tailgates. Before, people would stay at the tailgates in order to continue drinking, missing the actual game. Now, people have the opportunity to come to the games and still purchase drinks if they want to.

“For baseball we had a couple of drink specials, and we definitely saw a spike in attendance on those nights,” Knowles said.

Athletes, especially coaches, have noticed an increase in attendance. This year, baseball had one of the most well-attended sports seasons in recent history. Knowles said whether this is simply because of the outstanding team, the sale of alcohol doesn’t hurt.

The university does encourage responsible drinking, and Vice President of Student Affairs Eugene Dial said the university’s view on alcohol.

“If we’re going to allow alcohol to be at university events, whether it’s for sale or it’s at a tailgate, the university is going to enforce the twenty-one drinking age because that’s the law,” Dial said.

“The laws are pretty specific about who can drink, who can’t drink,” Jaccuzzo said. “Laws are also specific about the age and the level of alcohol you can consume before you can drink and drive, so with those parameters, it makes our decisions a lot easier to decide when someone is violating the law or drinking irresponsibly.”

The majority of students are under the drinking age, and Nicholls is a relatively dry campus compared to other universities. Some of the most popular events on campus like Family Day and the midterm breakfast do not have alcohol present.

“We want our students to have fun, but we also try to create a campus culture where you can have fun without consuming alcohol,” Dial said.

“We want students to know that its perfectly okay and normal to choose not to drink,” Dial said “As well as it’s perfectly okay, if you’re of legal age, to choose to drink. This creates a culture where people are not pressured to drink, and learn that it is acceptable and well within the norm to say no.”