The Study Hall needs to pick up some honesty, since its 50 Club members picked up the tab.

The Study Hall — which constitutes a whopping 50 percent of all of Isla Vista’s bars — recently decided that the 200 plus students who completed the 50 Club this year would not be rewarded as originally promised.

For those of you unaware, the local watering hole known as Study Hall has a tradition known as “50 Club” — buy at least one drink on 50 different days in the quarter (which is about 75 days long) and you will be rewarded.  In the past, this reward included a party at the bar’s State Street location exclusively for all 50 Club members complete with unlimited free alcohol.  Things changed this year.  While over 200 students decided to make the sacrifice, Study Hall announced on June 1 that there would be no party this year. Study Hall’s bartenders, as of last week, were still promising the party and even telling students the day that it would be occurring.

If we assume that each member only bought one drink for each of the 50 days of a 50 Club Membership, that ends up being in the neighborhood of $250 spent over the course of the quarter — and many people who far and away exceeded that amount. Additionally, fitting a visit to the Study Hall at least five times a week is quite an obligation.

Before you all jump on me and say “You are just sad that you don’t have an excuse to be a drunk senior,” Study Hall needs to realize that, clichés aside, promises are promises.  I am well aware that Study Hall never signed anything agreeing to the party.  That being said, if there is one thing I learned in Doug Kulper’s Economics 189 class, it is that bad business ethics will inevitably lead to a failing business model.

The bar could have told us from the beginning, but their honesty would hurt profits.  I could easily write this in order to inspire people to despise, and possibly boycott, Study Hall. Word could easily spread quickly about how immoral and dishonest the bar is, ultimately causing a substantial decrease in its patrons (wouldn’t Dublin’s love that?). I instead would like to argue for a compromise.

A simple gift certificate (say, for $40 or $50 per 50 Club Member) seems like a more-than-fair option.  This could preserve the bar’s good name — and we all know how quickly a bad reputation can spread in Isla Vista.  Study Hall would not lose any money since they would have been paying a substantial amount in free alcohol at the party as well as the cost of shutting down the bar to other patrons.  In fact, by giving out gift certificates, Study Hall would guarantee that the most alcohol-thirsty Isla Vistans continue to go to them for booze — further staking their claim on our wallets.

To all of those 50 Club members out there: Let’s hear it!  Go to Study Hall and let them know what they can do to appease you and save their respectable reputation — God knows that we lost ours by getting drunk there on such a regular basis.

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