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Old policies thrown out for football tailgating; alcohol limit removed By Justin Hicks Sports Editor
PhotoS bY Charlotte bodak/ASSiStAnt Photo EditoR
Bartender Ben Breidenstein, left, and Lois Breidenstein, owner of The Bird Bar and Grill, sift through fake IDs that have been collected at the doors of the bar.
Getting caught Mount Pleasant bars confiscate fake IDs, some employees earn $5 per confiscation By Tony Wittkowski | Staff Reporter
underage college students, but bars in Mount Pleasant have begun to master the art of confiscation.
By Cecilia Erwin Staff Reporter
Lois Breidenstein, owner and operator of The Bird Bar and Grill in downtown Mount Pleasant, has been using an effective method for confiscating fakes for over five years. Each employee receives a $5 stipend for
“If we find a fake license, we confiscate it, mark an X on it with a black marker and don’t give it back,” Breidenstein said. The pile of confiscated IDs at The Bird is about three and a half inches thick. A majority of the confiscations occur between Thursday and Saturday evenings. “We always have to do a good job of checking first semester so (students) know not to try (using fakes) at our place,” Breidenstein said. The Bird is one of many bars around the state registered with the Michigan State Police on the ID Checking Guide, which provides pictures and descriptions of every state’s ID as well as all provinces in Canada. The
A fake ID sits on top of a pile of other IDs that have been collected over the years at the doors of The Bird Bar and Grill, 223 S. Main St.
guide costs $26 per year. Breidenstein said students usually try to convince employees there has been a mistake when they’re caught with a fake. “We usually (ask if they) want to call the police,” Breidenstein said. “The police are always really good about coming out.” At The Cabin, it’s the responsibility of the people working the door to spot a fake or borrowed ID. All employees take a two-hour class focusing on how to spot fakes. “We had to get the training the state makes all the employees take. When I do find (fake IDs), I bring them up to the bar,” Troy senior and doorman at The Cabin
Josh Lee said. “They get rid of them and don’t give them back.” Freddie’s Tavern is also strict on fake IDs, toting a zero-tolerance policy when they are found. Mount Pleasant senior and Freddie’s employee Dani Phillips does not notice a lot of fakes anymore due to their strict policy. “I’m a townie, so I recognize some of the (underage) students,” Phillips said. “If we spot a fake, we either throw it away or turn it in to the police.” Ben Breidenstein, Lois’ son and manager at The Bird, said there have been more stories than he could remember. “The worst card I have
A TAILGATE| 10A
CMU spent $110,805 lobbying Lansing in 2011
Fake IDs have become a norm among
every fake they find.
Tailgating at Central Michigan University has been redefined. The Department of Athletics at CMU released an updated tailgating policy Friday. The new policy states that alcoholic beverages are permitted only at football game tailgates, excluding tailgates for other CMU sporting events without prior written Athletic Department approval. While there is no limit on alcoholic beverages per person, the policy states that tailgating will not be permitted earlier than four hours before kickoff, nor is it permitted once the game starts. Director of Athletics Dave Heeke said the new tailgate operation can only help the university in bringing the students back on game day. “I look at it as a new day; a new opportunity,” he said. “We want it to be a lovely, festive, great college afternoon, and we just want it to be safe... that has to be first and foremost, the safety of our students above anything else.”
Student Government Association president Justin Gawronski led a student committee in working with CMU athletics and CMU police in order to reevaluate and create a positive experience for Chippewa fans and students. “We engaged SGA, and Justin has been a phenomenal leader in representing student interest, really sitting down and evaluating its impact and understanding we want tailgating to be an environment that’s available for all individuals and that everyone feels there’s an opportunity to participate in the game day environment,” said Derek van der Merwe, deputy director of athletics and chief operating officer. Gawronski and van der Merwe met at the beginning of the summer and began discussing changes to the policy that would improve the experience for students, while also providing a safe environment for everyone. “We thought this was the best solution as far as benefiting students, as well as athletics, to bring more of
ever seen was a Russian ID,” he said. “The card looked like a Chippewa ID and she used an accent, which she stopped using halfway through the night.” More than half the IDs that are collected are not fakes but IDs that were borrowed from someone else. “Whenever we take a borrowed ID, the person who lent the ID to the other person will come in the next day asking for it, but we don’t give it back,” Lois said. Some of the key indicators when spotting a fake are the height and eye color, said DJ Blizzard, one of the managers at The Bird. A FAKE ID| 2A
Central Michigan University spent $110,805 in 2011 lobbying state legislators and administration officials, according to the Michigan Department of State. Toby Roth Jr., director of federal programs, and Kathleen Wilbur, vice president of development and external relations, are registered to lobby on CMU’s behalf in Lansing. “Almost all of the reported $110,805 covers our time spent in Lansing and on campus advocating for CMU programs and state funding support,” Roth said. “Each of us tracks our time lobbying and then divides our salary by the hours spent lobbying to determine the dollar amount we report to the state.” CMU has also hired the Lansing-based law firm Wiener and Associates to lobby for the university. Roth said $19,200 of the $110,805 went to the firm for the time they spent lobbying on behalf of CMU. Based on the Department of State’s reports of CMU’s
lobbying expenses from 2001-11, the university has spent an average of $84,080 per year on state lobbying. Since 2001, CMU has spent $924,881 in total on state lobbying. Roth said CMU’s lobbying efforts include successfully fighting to limit reductions in state appropriations for the university’s fiscal year 2011-12 budget, hosting members of the state legislature and administration for tours of campus and meetings with faculty and staff, and working to expand CMU’s Capitol City Intern program. CMU’s lobbying has also allowed state officials to tour the biological station on Beaver Island and has organized the Posters in the Capitol event in Lansing, which features research posters from undergraduate students. Gov. Snyder signed legislation in June that provides CMU with $30 million to fund a new biosciences building on campus.
A LOBBYING| 2A
Academic calendar could change in fall 2014 semester to a 14-week schedule By Catey Traylor University Editor
Changes suggested last spring for the academic calendar might become a reality for students beginning in fall 2014. The new calendar, introduced and adopted by the Academic Senate last spring, would shorten the fall semester by one week, starting classes after Labor Day weekend. In a news release sent on Tuesday, Faculty Association President Laura Frey and
Executive Director of Faculty Personnel Services Matt Serra announced the Faculty Association and CMU have committed to changing the academic calendar beginning in the fall 2014 semester. Serra will meet with Student Government Association president Justin Gawronski, a Macomb junior, on Friday to discuss the role students play in the changed calendar. “SGA doesn’t have an official position yet, because the changes are so new. Students will have the opportunity to
present in affirmation or opposition at SGA meetings and hopefully that’ll inspire some intelligent debate on the topic,” Gawronski said. “This directly affects the students and this is a place where legislation can definitely have a pull on the university.” Academic Senate created a committee last year that was in charge of revamping the calendar to accommodate the changes and address concerns with the calendar. According to a March Central Michigan Life article,
Center for Inclusion and Diversity
concerns included a need to adjust master course syllabi, a shorter time span to cover the same amount of material, maintaining the Thursday and Friday before exams as a study break and overlapping eight-week terms for offcampus students. Serra said the main focus now is to address concerns from departments and organizations across campus. “We want people to speak up. We need to figure out what the major hurdles are. We have so many programs
on campus that have different timelines, but right now, people are still trying to formulate how this will impact their area on campus,” he said. “The next step is to accumulate the responses from around campus and meet again with the FA to bargain over the calendar. We’ll be taking people’s issues and seeing how to manage those problems.” Gawronski said it’s important to present both positive and negative aspects of the calendar change before opin-
office for Institutional Diversity
WARRINER HALL 319 (989) 774-3700 www.cmich.edu/Institutional_diversity.htm
ions are formed. “The administration and staff will respect the students’ decision, but once we have SGA meetings, there will be plenty of opportunities to communicate the entire plan and people can form opinions rather than having knee-jerk reactions,” he said. “When it comes down to it, if students don’t want it, we can go far enough to make it not happen.” A SCHEDULE| 2A
Diversity is the opportunity
to interact & work with people who and solve problems
view the
world
differently. Imagine the solutions. Denise O’Neil Green, Ph.D. Former Associate Vice President for Institutional Diversity KING-CHAVEZ-PARKS VISITING PROFESSORS PROGRAM
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