We want our pub in the HUB

This year’s round of ASUW elections ended with cheers for some and tears for others. Besides the write-ins for campus squirrels, The Daily’s copy of the voting results had one interesting survey hidden away on the last page.

More than 67 percent of voting students supported the idea of a restaurant with a liquor license in the HUB. The idea, popularly called the “pub in the HUB,” seems like nothing the UW administration would even think of approving — but they should.

There are probably legal implications for the administration to worry about and uneasy janitors uneager to clean up after undergraduates who didn’t quite make it to the bathroom.

But the idea might not be so absurd. Students drink already. Everybody knows that. And the Ave isn’t always the safest place to relax for a few drinks on a Friday night. Sharing a few drinks on campus in a building whose sole purpose is to serve students doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing.

By building a pub in the HUB, the university could acknowledge and address an aspect of student life evident everywhere from the residence halls to the Ave to the Greek community.

And it would be safe. UWPD has a more immediate presence on campus to regulate student drinking. And the same laws would apply to students stupid enough to leave the pub obviously drunk: a citation for public intoxication.

The idea isn’t ridiculous nor is it dangerous. The HUB might actually be the safest place for a student to drink.

And don’t forget the faculty and staff. Professors who prefer to hold office hours in a more relaxed atmosphere than their offices wouldn’t have to march down to the Ave, especially when it’s January and raining buckets.

There is so much focus on undergraduates at the UW — first-year programs, the common book and FIGS, for example — that the concerns of graduate students are sometimes left by the wayside.

Abundant academic accommodations exist for grad students, but the well-being of graduate students isn’t readily apparent on campus. A pub in the HUB might address some of those needs by providing a place for grad students to mingle with their peers.

Granted, not all graduate students drink, nor are all undergraduates older than 21 years old, but the UW should consider providing a place where its of-age staff, faculty and students can have a drink on campus.

Any reasonable establishment can regulate who enters the pub. Any reasonable establishment can tell when someone’s had too much. The HUB closes at midnight anyway, meaning last call for alcohol would be at about 11:15 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday night — not quite a place to party.

Plans are in the works to begin renovating and expanding the HUB during spring quarter 2010. Part of that plan is to add dining space. Allocating some of that space to a pub isn’t absurd, if managed correctly.