Fight for the Right to Party

A couple of years ago, bars in Madison, Wisconsin, agreed to curtail weekend drink specials. The University of Wisconsin and the Madison City Council had urged them to do so, arguing that cheap booze was an invitation to alcohol abuse. The effort was part of the federally funded PACE (Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education) project, which encourages cooperation between campuses and surrounding communities to control student drinking.

I don't much like the idea of charging everyone more to discourage abuse by a minority (which is also the rationale for alcohol taxes). But the bar owners presumably were following what they took to be the path of least resistance, trying to avoid trouble by making a gesture of social responsibilty. If they had been regular readers of Wally Olson's Overlawyered.com, they might have guessed what would happen next. As Olson notes, the bars are now facing a class action lawsuit brought by students accusing them of price fixing.