Bar bust nabs over 200 students
By JASON McFARLEY
News Writer
About 200 Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students were caught Friday at The Boat Club in a raid instigated months ago by complaints about underage drinking, police confirmed.
In all, authorities issued 231 citations to 213 underage patrons, said Lt. Greg Deitchley, spokesman for the District 1 office of the Indiana State Excise Police, which oversaw the raid. Each received a minor in a tavern citation, and some were ticketed for owning false identification.
While he didn't know an exact number, Deitchley said all but 15 to 20 of the people nabbed in the 12:40 a.m. raid were not Notre Dame or Saint Mary's students.
In addition, two Notre Dame students, one male and one female, were arrested for public intoxication and taken to St. Joseph County Jail, police said. Police took the woman to a local hospital where she was treated for possible alcohol poisoning and released Friday morning.
Notre Dame Security/Police officials, who brought campus phonebooks to the raid, have a complete list of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students who were cited.
The sweep by South Bend, Indiana State and state excise police followed an investigation into complaints two months ago about minors consuming alcohol at the 106 N. Hill St. bar, according to Deitchley, who said he couldn't disclose who provided the information to police.
But on campus, the bar was well known as a weekend haven for freshmen and other underage students. Popular belief was that the bar would never be busted.
Nevertheless, the Boat Club raid apparently became the biggest to occur at a bar popular among Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students. It was likely the largest in city history as well.
Among student taverns, the Boat Club bust tops the January 1998 raid of Bridget McGuire's Filling Station where police cited 165 underage customers and the October 2000 Finnigan's Irish Pub raid that caught 147 minors. A November 1998 raid netted citations for 95 patrons at Irish Connection.
Traditionally, cited students have faced punishment in court and at school.
Minor in a tavern is a Class C misdemeanor that carries up to a $500 fine and six months in jail and possible loss of driver's license. But offenders are rarely punished that severely.
In St. Joseph County, for example, the prosecutor's office has typically offered pretrial diversion to minors charged with consuming alcohol. This measure in the past has prevented the charge from appearing on their record if they paid $220 court fees and completed 40 hours of community service.
Most of the students involved in the Finnigan's bust received pretrial diversion.
Out of court, Notre Dame students have faced further discipline.
The University's student handbook, du Lac, says students who break, local, state or federal laws may be subject to disciplinary action by the school. Following past bar raids, University punishment has included a combination of community service and fines. Most of the Notre Dame students ticketed at Finnigan's received $100 fines from the University.
Saint Mary's handbook, on the other hand, bars officials from imposing sanctions for off-campus offenses; thus students have faced only legal reprimand.
As for Boat Club, it may be in legal hot water itself.
Police expect to forward their report on the raid to the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission by Tuesday, said Deitchley, of the state excise police.
Serving alcohol to minors is a Class C misdemeanor. Bartenders face loss of their permit, while bar owners are subject to loss of their liquor license and fines up to $1,000 per offense.
Bridget McGuires and Irish Connection lost their liquor licenses. The latter went out of business, while the former now operates as the coffee shop Molly McGuire's.
The prosecutor in the Finnigan's case offered a deal that allowed the bar's owners to escape severe penalties if they paid a fine and sold their liquor license to new owners. The bar is now The Library.
The Boat Club was a popular destination for students on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Between 200 and 300 people were inside the bar at the time of the raid, police said.
Police shut down the bar, sealed off exits and for more than two hours ticketed underage customers inside the two-story building. Deitchley said students were surprisingly cooperative with police.
Word of the bust spread quickly around campus, as students at the bar used cell phones to call friends. Many students braved below-freezing temperatures and rushed to the bar to witness the action.
As buzz about the bust continued around campus Friday, the student-run Web site ndtoday.com jokingly declared it "a day that will live in infamy."
"I never thought the day would happen," said senior Dan Good, a regular patron of the club, "but with 20/20 hindsight, Chad Sharon and the mugging last week, we should have known."
Sharon, a Notre Dame freshman, has been missing since he disappeared following a Dec. 12 house party on Corby Boulevard.
Another Notre Dame freshman reported this week to South Bend police that he was mugged Jan. 17 while walking home alone from The Boat Club.
In the wake of those events, many students speculated that the raid was tied to school and city officials' concerns about student safety. But police said they were acting on complaints of underage drinking that preceded both Sharon's disappearance and the alleged mugging.
All News Stories for Monday, January 27, 2003
