Recently the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) banned all Oswego student activities from their facilities. There has been much student speculation as to why they have made this decision.
"They have always threatened to ban [student activities], but they never went through with it," said Charlene Irving, president of the Caribbean Student Association at Oswego state.
Many thought this was because of fighting during parties planned by Oswego State student organizations. Though fights were a cause of the ban, they were not directly responsible.
Normally the VFW is not allowed to let organizations have events at their facility unless those organizations are affiliated, said Jim Davies, a bartender at VFW.
Therefore only VFW members are allowed to rent out space. This is because their club license does not cover such rentals.
Due to fighting, city police were called. When the police were contacted, they notified the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) who cracked down on their rule that restricts non-members from hosting events and underage drinking in the process.
If the VFW were to decide to remain having these events in their facility, they could face up to $100,000 in fines. Davies also hinted that this is why some other venues in the city may have backed out of hosting Oswego state events.
Unbeknownst to the real reason for the ban, last Friday, there was a meeting in the Campus Center titled "No Fighting in the Club." The meeting, which was targeted for all ALANA organizations, was created to bring the ALANA organizations together to the find the reason that these subsequent fights break out.
Irving, who also thought the cause was primarily the risk of fighting, mentioned a couple ideas to sway the venues back toward favoring Oswego State events.
One was for campus organizations to hire bodyguards to properly control the situation if a disturbance were to occur. Another was to host events other than parties in order to show that these organizations also want to make productive changes in the school and community.
This ban has forced organizations to move their parties on campus. The only option used so far has been the CBI lounge in Cayuga Hall. Only one campus organization has decided to use Cayuga so far.
