Former Madison mayor Paul Soglin offers up his advice for preventing another Halloween fiasco and I’m glad he lost to Dave, not that Dave is doing an adequate job of handling city business either.
“First, the private apartment parties with the excessive drinking that has run rampant since the summer of 1997 must come to an end. That culture of alchol [sic] abuse is a major cotibutor [sic] to the dangerous substance abuse that takes place each fall.
Get the kids back in the bars where they belong.”
So Paul wants more regulations for what you do in your home, freedoms be damned. I know people that have a party at their home downtown instead of heading out on State Street. Then there’s people that have after parties at their apartments so people have some place to go after the bars on State Street close. In Paul’s dream world, everyone will party politely at State Street and then disburse and go to bed after bar time. Nice fantasy, but it will never happen unless you have it enforced by shock troops.
It’s also a fantasy that apartment parties downtown are something that has escalated since 1997. Everyone knows the University students have a long history of parties. It dates back before Soglin’s time at the University in the 60’s. The Mifflin Street Block Party is an homage to that history.