THURSDAY
DAILY EGYPTIAN JULY 18, 2013
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
SINCE 1916
VOLUME 98, ISSUE 151
Ban on Halloween lifted after 12 years STEPHANIE DANNER Daily Egyptian After nearly two decades of strict Halloween weekend regulations specific to the Strip, the Carbondale City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday to lift the ban on downtown bar operations for a one-year trial period, making this the first time in twelve years the bars will be allowed to open. The ordinance banning bar
operation was originally put in place in 1994 after violent riots and street parties broke out on the Strip. After the ban was set in place, the bars closed yearly until 2000 when they were allowed to open for one year. This resulted in another violent street party that required police intervention. Since then, bars on the Strip have not been allowed to open on Halloween until the recent City Council’s revisit to the ordinance. Several months ago, Sally Carter,
owner of Hanger 9, requested the ban be lifted and bars be treated equally regardless of their location. Soon after, the City Council devised four possible plans of action: a one year trial period, a graduated reduction of restricted boundary area, a complete repeal of restrictions on Class B liquor licenses as it relate to Halloween or a resolution maintaining the existing restrictions. Councilwoman Jane Adams, along with a majority of the council, voted
in favor of the first option. “This will not be a street party,” she said. “Nobody wants a street party. That’s over. This is not going to be resurrecting Halloween. This is going to be letting three bars stay open.” Bryan Woodruff, manager at Sidetracks, said he understood the necessity of the ban 12 years ago but thinks it has been enforced beyond the years required to control the chaos. Woodruff said he thinks there will be no problems because students have
been under control during unofficial Halloween and believes it will carry over into official Halloween. “I hope the students realize the chance they have been given and can prove they are responsible,” he said. While most members of the City Council were in favor of the ordinance, some members, like councilman Lee Fronabager, were opposed to the one-year trial. Please see BAN | 3
Illinois gun groups mixed about new legislation MATT DARAY Daily Egyptian Various gun supporters and denouncers in Illinois have mixed feelings about the new legislation. Illinois is now the latest and final state to legalize the concealed carry of firearms for public possession. On July 9th, the state legislation vetoed Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto against concealed carry and made the state the last in the country to legalize concealed carry. The new law has some Illinoisans excited while others are worried about the future of guns. The concealed carry legislation was put into law after the Illinois Senate voted 41-17 in favor of vetoing Quinn’s veto of the law. Quinn had used his veto in order to suggest changes to the law such as limiting the number of guns a citizen can carry to one and prohibiting guns in restaurants that serve alcohol. The concealed carry law allows anyone with a Firearm Owner’s Identification card who has passed a background check and taken 16 hours of gun-safety training to buy a $150 concealed carry permit. While concealed carry permits will not go into affect until next year, law officials are unsure what kind of impact the concealed carry could have on the state. Cara Smith, the Cook County sheriff’s chief of policy and communications, said the law presents future challenges for the department because while the law makes it easier for law enforcement to deny certain citizens the right to use concealed carry, the size of Cook County could allow many unsuitable people to obtain concealed carry licenses. Please see LEGISLATION | 4
CHRIS ZOELLER | DAILY EGYPTIAN
Williamson County Gun Club President Mike Smith looks over a shooting target Tuesday at the gun range in Carterville. According to the new concealed carry law passed in Illinois, residents must complete 16 hours of training. In addition to training, residents must be able to reach a certain score while shooting a stationary target similar to the one pictured above from five, seven and 10 yards away. Smith, a certified Illinois firearms instructor, has been shooting for more than 40 years. “I enjoy being an instructor for one reason, to teach safety and to teach someone how to do something right from the get go,” he said.
Researchers plan groundbreaking sensor to save sturgeon TREY BRAUNECKER Daily Egyptian The university is conducting research with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to try and save an endangered species of fish native to the Midwest. Jim Garvey, a zoology professor and director of Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences, said he has been working on his research program for almost 13 years. He said the focus of his research is to help save the endangered pallid sturgeon by understanding its habitat needs, what population aspects of the sturgeon make it vulnerable to extinction and how the university can work with the government to help increase the species’ population. Garvey said unlike many other
species of sturgeon, which tend to live in the ocean during their adult lifecycle, the pallid sturgeon is a landlocked fish and does not migrate from its rivers. “The species that we are working with actually live their entire life in the waters of the U.S.,” he said. “They live in the Mississippi River, the Missouri River and Ohio River, so they do not move to the ocean when they are mature.” Garvey said because of the rarity of the fish, research on the pallid sturgeon has proven to be a tedious and difficult process for his team. “It has been a long slog because of the low population of the sturgeon,” he said. “It is very hard to catch and when you catch it, you try to do everything you can with it to
understand the species thoroughly.” Most recently, Garvey and his team have been trying to raise money to pioneer a new technology for a sensor that will detect when, where and how pallid sturgeon are spawning, Bill Hintz, a doctoral student in fisheries from Waseca, Minn., said. Hintz said with the information gathered from the sensors, essentially tags, conservationists can find where the pallid sturgeon spawn and what kind of conditions need to be restored in the river to help increase their population. “In short, the tags monitor the physiological parameters of the fish so we can understand when they are going to spawn, when they are ready to spawn and where they spawn,” Hintz said.
After struggling to find funding through conventional educational resources, the team sought funding through a non-conventional public method called Kickstarter, an online public funding platform. Hintz said the money, which would be provided by donations, would help fund research to create the tags for the pallid sturgeon and allow the team to monitor the sturgeon’s body activities and location. However, the Kickstarter campaign did not reach the $100,000 goal by the July 3 deadline, which means the group wasn’t rewarded any funding since the website requires a specific goal to be met in full before any money is given to a campaign. Although funding for the tag development hasn’t pulled through
yet, Hintz said the team is still looking for other resources and continuing any possible research. For example, his research involves studying the niche overlap between the endangered pallid sturgeon and the more common shovelnose sturgeon, he said. Hintz said he has conducted experiments with the pallid sturgeon to understand the habitat use of the two species and to see whether they prefer to live in the same types of habitats. Hintz said his research looks at the energy cost, or the amount of energy the sturgeon use while living in a certain environment, to identify which areas the sturgeon are most active. Please see STURGEON | 3