Campustown needs competition


To the editor:

Expressing concern for patrons' safety in bars, "Working for safer bars"
states that the solution to violence is to force bar owners to invade   
the privacy of their employees by requiring mandatory drug testing and  
employee education.  In other words, because the City of Champaign has  
restricted the rights of its people to run bars, it must further abridge
their rights to assure the safety of bar patrons.

This logic is not only circular, but it completely ignores the editorial's
own admission that a free market system (i.e. no regulation of bars)
would solve the problem.  Instead of freeing men from their chains  
to compete to provide the best and safest establishment, it advocates
chaining them down, with each tightening a justification for the next.

The correct solution to bar violence is twofold: allow people to operate
bars freely and prosecute those who initiate the use of physical force. 

Only when patrons are free to choose between scores of bars will safety
be at the forefront of owners' minds.


Sidney Cammeresi
Junior in Engineering


-- 
Copyright 1999, Sidney Cammeresi.
All rights reserved.