By Jason Freund 17

Examining other university communities’ policies relating to neighborhood house parties will be the focus of a Carbondale report asked for by the City Council this summer.

Carbondale City Manager Jeff Doherty said his office has begun collecting information from other college towns to use as a comparison with Carbondale.

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We’re getting information from other communities, and we also are looking at what’s happening this fall as the bar-entry age goes down, he said. Obviously, Carbondale is not unique for a university community to have these issues.

Doherty said focusing on how other communities deal with similar problems could present new options for Carbondale to consider.

We’ve been through this before, in terms of looking at this (issue), he said. Hopefully, there’s some new ways of approaching it.

He said the report should be finished in the fall, and then it will be discussed by the Liquor Advisory Board and the City Council.

We’ll talk about what we’re doing, what others are doing and options that are available, Doherty said.

The issue was first discussed at an August Liquor Advisory Board meeting, when some bar owners complained about house parties.

The Carbondale Liquor Commission then agreed that city staff should prepare a report.

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Doherty was chosen to prepare the report, with help from various other city staff members.

He said the city is continually examining other cities’ policies and will begin compiling information for the new report in the next few weeks.

We have staff people who are involved with various liquor issues, ranging from the police chief to the city clerk, to building and neighborhood services, he said. They’re staff people who have dealt with various liquor issues over the years.

He said the report will focus on policy because examining individual parties can cause confusion.

The issue is parties in the neighborhoods and how various communities deal with those, Doherty said. It’s not necessarily, There were 15 or 30 parties.’ There’re too many variables when you get into the numbers.

Doherty said the city is not trying to prohibit neighborhood parties.

Our approach to neighborhood parties is, Hey, have a good time, but here’re the limitations and the parameters,’ he said.

Doherty said the parameters are that there can be no public consumption of alcohol, that partiers must be considerate to neighbors and know that loud noise and parking problems are going to attract police, and that the sale of alcohol is illegal without a liquor license.

He said the city is trying to be fair to all sides, but some people still are not happy.

There are people who feel that police are doing nothing and those who feel the police are doing too much, Doherty said. It’s like we’re walking a tight rope, and everyone’s trying to push us off.

He said he wants students to have fun in Carbondale.

We’re a university community, and we want people to have a good time and enjoy themselves, but within certain parameters, he said.

Mark Robinson, Liquor Advisory Board vice president, said the report is not really necessary.

I could predict that the committee will say house parties are wrong because they’re bad, he said.

He said the committee will cite uncontrolled drinking, selling liquor without a license and the opportunity for sexual assaults as the bad sides of house parties.

Robinson said, however, that there are enough laws regulating house parties in Carbondale.

There’s already enough laws that say house parties are bad, he said. We don’t need more laws, and we probably have too many already.