THE DAILY
MISSISSIPPIAN
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Volume 104, No. 86
T H E S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I S S I S S I P P I S E R V I N G O L E M I S S A N D OX F O R D S I N C E 1 9 1 1
lifestyles Spoiler alert: The Walking Dead returns Page 4
sports
Could NCAA investigation lead to sanctions? Page 7
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sports
Rebs fall 62-48 against Texas A&M Page 8
Oxford Film Festival to double participants UM Safe Ride partners with city DAWN BODDIE
dboddie@go.olemiss.edu
For more than a decade, the Oxford Film Festival has supported and celebrated the art of independent cinema. The 13th Annual Oxford Film Festival will begin Wednesday night at the Powerhouse with events at multiple venues in town, finishing Sunday evening. Within the next five days, filmmakers and film lovers from all over the country will be traveling to Oxford to participate in the festival’s many screenings, panels and social events involving a large selection of independent films. Oxford Film Festival executive director Melanie Addington has been working with more than 300 volunteers, 150 visiting industry and filmmaker special guests and has coordinated thousands of attendees in a condensed five days all while making sure everyone has fun. Addington said that despite this being the festival’s 13th
SLADE RAND
ksrand@go.olemiss.edu
COURTESY: OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL
year, this year will be like none other. “We have doubled the number of films,” Addington said. “Tripled the number of panels, added virtual reality films, added more special screenings including anniversary screenings, added more venues, added more events and the list continues.” Addington said the expansion of the festival and the large diversity of what it has to offer this year can appeal to all different types of people. “This is a diverse group of projects that will virtually place audience members in foreign lands, scary situations and fascinating worlds in a way that is
visceral, dynamic and exciting,” Addington said. The Oxford Film Festival continues to grow. This year’s selections —both in subject matter, representation from the world, and the sheer number of films chosen —reflect that. The festival screens short and feature-length films in both showcase and competition settings. Sophomore integrated marketing communications major An Le will be serving as a hospitality volunteer coordinator for this year’s festival. “I worked last year with the festival,” Le said. “But I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like working with almost double the amount of film makers this
year.” Tickets for the festival are available online or upon arrival for specific events, weekend passes and one-day passes. The first event of the week is the Southern Foodways Alliance Kick-Off Food Film Fest, where attendees will watch films and eat the food being shown onscreen. The awards ceremony will be Sunday, concluding the festival. Among many category awards, all films are eligible for the Ron Tibbett Audience Award. Ron Tibbett was the founding director of the Magnolia Film Festival in Starkville, the first independent film festival in Mississippi.
Tax on bar sales increases revenue for Oxford SPECIAL TO THE DM
KAITLIN FEASTER CECILY LANE MARY ELIZABETH MOORE thedmnews@gmail.com
Oxford’s restaurant and bar scene boasts 47 full-service restaurants, according to census data. Of those establishments, more than 30 are licensed to serve liquor and beer in accordance with the Mississippi Department of Revenue alcohol and beverage rules and regulations and Oxford’s Code of Ordinances. “It’s an ABC Law to sell food at our bars,” said Jim Bulian, owner of Old Venice and The Burgundy Room.
Of the 30 bars and restaurants in the Oxford area, over 50 percent of nightlife hotspots are on the Square, according to Visit Oxford. Under the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s regulations, all bars are required to serve food. Bars must have at least five different food menu options, all of which have to be prepared and not simply heated or “ready-to-eat.” All bars and restaurants that carry and sell beer, wine or liquor are required to have appropriate licensing for the selling of alcohol. ABC has approximately 22 dif-
ferent types of liquor licenses. The Growler, located off of the Square, originally only sold beer, said Krisi Allen, the bar’s general manager. Beer licenses are separate from wine and liquor licenses, but The Growler opted to get both in case they ever decided to expand their drink selection. “That was probably the most difficult part, having to do all the extra hoops, that we didn’t necessarily need for our business,” Allen said. “I’m glad that we had to go through the hoops in the beginning, because it makes it easy now to expand our menu.”
The city of Oxford and Students for a Safe Ride came together recently to create a safe and convenient late-night transportation option. Since January 21, Safe Route buses have been helping students safely get home and keeping traffic safer on the Square. Previously, the Safe Ride and Oxford-University Transit bus systems operated separately across the UM campus and Oxford. Recent parking issues on the Square and campus prompted an overhaul of local public transportation. Both the city and university recognized this need for change and created a new program. Student organization Students for a Safe Ride and Oxford’s O.U.T. partnered together, founding Safe Route, a bus service running at night between the Square and campus. The Safe Route bus stop includes four stops on Campus; Crosby, Minor Hall, Paris-Yates Chapel and Sorority Row, taking riders to and from the Federal Building on East Jackson Avenue. The service runs Thursdays and Fridays throughout the Fall and Spring semesters from 10 p.m.-2 a.m.,
SEE SAFE RIDE PAGE3
The city of Oxford adds an extra 2 percent tax increase on any food and beverage sale from bars and restaurants. The money collected from this tax increase goes toward tourism and marketing, the Oxford Conference Center, flowering and décor for the Oxford Square and more, Visit Oxford assistant director Kinney Farris said. The money generated from this 2 percent tax has increased the tourism budget by 11 percent in the past two fiscal years. Throughout 2014-2015, the city made $2,589,358 from the food and li-
SEE REVENUE PAGE 3
COURTESY: SAFE RIDE