Alcohol Admits Double at Game

In spite of increased efforts to improve student safety at the Harvard-Yale tailgate this year, the number of students transported to University Health Services (UHS) and area hospitals more than doubled compared to the 2002 Game, the last time the competition was at Harvard.

David S. Rosenthal ’59, director of UHS, said yesterday that 25 students were transported to the hospital for alcohol-related incidents. Another 30 were treated at the first-aid tent set up in the middle of Ohiri Field, where the undergraduate tailgate was held, Rosenthal said.

In 2002, 10 students went to UHS and area hospitals for alcohol poisoning. One admittance was a near-death case that involved an undergraduate.

The tailgate faced increased oversight this year in response to police and College concerns about underage and binge drinking. The athletic department banned U-Haul trucks, which tore up the fields in 2002. The College also centralized beer distribution and required students wear wristbands to indicate that they were old enough to drink.

Rosenthal said that it is difficult to compare this year’s numbers to past years because of several logistical changes. The centralized tailgate area, as well as the first-aid tent, could have afffected the number of alcohol incidents, Rosenthal said.

Rosenthal said that there were no life-threatening cases this year.

“To the best of my knowledge, no one had to be intubated, and I think that’s because they were transported early on,” he said.

Rosenthal also praised the first-aid tent, the pre-Game breakfast and the nearly 1,000 bottles of water handed out by the nursing staff as factors limiting the numbers of serious alcohol poisonings.

Regardless, Rosenthal said that The Game has fostered a “bad tradition” that encouraged heavy drinking.

“I am concerned about the whole philosophy that...a significantly small number of people who come to the Harvard-Yale Game see it as an excuse to get drunk,” Rosenthal said.

But Chair to the Committee to Address Alcohol and Health at Harvard Joseph L. Badaracco said that the numbers had to be more closely examined before making judgements.

Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd and Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II declined to comment.

Partly in response to concerns about student drinking, City Councilor at Large Stephen J. Murphy is proposing a keg-tracking law that would allow Boston police to keep tabs on where kegs are being used.

This Boston law is targeted at off-campus housing for area colleges but would affect Harvard as the University expands into Allston.

College students’ behavior figures largely in the need for this measure, said Captain William Evans of the Boston Police Department.

“I go to a lot of community meetings and the number one issue the community has identified for me to deal with is college behavior and all the problems it brings,” Evans said.

The proposal was triggered by the violent rioting in Kenmore Square after the Red Sox win in the final game of American League Championship Series last month, Murphy said. An Emerson College student, Victoria Snelgrove, was killed by police as they attempted to quell a riot with pepper spray. At a recent meeting convened by city politicians and police to investigate the causes of Snelgrove’s death, police said that one of the major crowd-control problems that night was the number of inebriated students who spilled out of keg parties from off-campus houses. This tracking law would help police plan for similar concentrations of kegs in the future.

Murphy said that on a day-to-day basis this measure is about protecting the quality of life for residents of these neighborhoods and allowing police to prevent wild parties more effectively.

“The police have had problems with keg parties in residential neighborhoods,” Murphy said. “It’s our duty to protect public safety and quality of life. Something needs to be done and this is a necessary first step.”

More than 10 states and various local jurisdictions across the country have instituted similar keg-tracking legislation. Tracking kegs would allow police to focus more attention on houses with multiple kegs, which are often the source of problems, Evans said.

“Hopefully it will make [students living off-campus] take more responsibility if they’re going to have large-scale parties,” Evans said.

This includes rowdy behavior, but also underage drinking, he said. “This sort of fixes responsibility on whoever purchases the keg,” said Evans.

“If we can stop the excessive flow of alcohol that kegs bring to neighborhoods it’s a step in the right direction,” he said.

However, Jeff Dolin of Blanchard’s Wine and Spirits in Allston disagreed about the possible effect of keg tracking.

“It won’t deter anything. Buying 30 packs of beer will go up, buying cheap vodka will go up,” Dolin said. “You may have more alcohol overdoses and possibly more deaths,” Dolin said.

—Staff writer Margaret W. Ho mwho@fas.harvard.edu.