Horray beer, Horray responsibility! XP
Anywho, tonight is the kick off of Halloween weekend. If you’ve heard anything about UW at this time of the year, you’d know that Halloween means that there are 75,000+ extra people in Madison and only 12% of those are students. Riots on State Street are also a matter of when and not if.
Riots and mass public drunkenness have been center stage the last few years, but things have changed this year. Highly restrictive new rules have been placed on university housing students and the city has brought in over a thousand extra police in addition to the Madison force. Huge stadium lights have been setup all along State St. (it’s as bright as day for 15 blocks) and all housing units have been changed to have only one exit point where there are police scanning IDs. It’s absolutely crazy and I’m sort of glad I’m going to be out of town all weekend at a regatta – otherwise I’d probably get arrested. Thankfully I was able to party tonight without getting beaten to a pulp by police sporting the latest fashion in riot gear, but apparently one of my neighbors wasn’t so fortunate 🙂