Best of Busted!

Police Raid Bucknell Sig Ep fundraiser

Police issued 85 underage drinking citations Friday night, mostly to students, when the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (LCB) busted a party held at Big Andy’s Bar & Grill in Milton.

The event fundraiser was called “Pandamonium” and was sponsored by the brothers of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

The number of citations issued “is kind of uncommon,” said Sergeant Jeffrey McGinnis, the LCB officer handling the case.

According to a police report, the management at Big Andy’s had contacted the Milton police to alert them of suspected underage drinking.

“The goal of the event was to raise money to save a panda in China through the Wolong [Nature] Reserve,” said [the chapter’s president].

More than 350 people signed up for the event. Students attending paid a $20 fee in advance and were bused to the party from campus the night of the event.

The University recently implemented a new policy to ban events from being held at Big Andy’s. This ban covers all events that need to be approved by the Dean of Students’ office. The decision was made as part of the University’s “risk-management review” and was “based on information about previous events at that venue,” said Tom Evelyn, director of media relations.

We don’t know about you, but when we think of panda bears, we automatically think of getting drunk! Okay, maybe not, but no one can deny that a large majority of people do, in fact, think of getting drunk when they think of fraternities. There are several things wrong with this picture, but the fact that these students, and thousands of others like them, continually perpetuate the stereotype that Greeks=Drunks while simultaneously ask why it is that Greeks get a bad rap is just the beginning.

Hosting what seems to be a free-for-all alcoholic event with underage students is clearly at the surface of the situation. We can’t think of any new and exciting ways to say it: underage drinking is against the law. It really doesn’t matter if you think the law is stupid, it’s still the law.

Also, what happened to using a little creativity in planning philanthropic events? Collecting a cover at a bar is the easy way out. As far as we’re concerned, this plan was a lazy way to raise money, even in the best-case scenario. The idea of philanthropy is not just shelling out money to a cause. The problem with getting your friends to give you $20 for your chapter philanthropy is that eventually you have to give them $20 for THEIR philanthropy… and that’s not raising money, it’s trading money.

Finally, this event was held at a bar that was recently banned from hosting university events. The article doesn’t say why, but we think it’s safe to assume that this place has a history of serving underage people.

Life really is just a series of decisions; some of those decisions are easy and have little impact on the course of your life, such as ‘shall I have white or wheat bread?’. However, other decisions are difficult and have a much more significant impact on our lives, such as ‘should I use my fake ID?’ or ‘should I drink underage at Big Andy’s?’. Some things are just not worth doing, even if everyone else is – like getting arrested.