What started out as a small competition between baseball, football and basketball players has turned into one of the most well-known events at Mesa State: Keg-a-thon. While not school sponsored, Keg-a-thon has been a highly anticipated event every fall and spring semester for nearly 11 years, according to Jeff Dolan, a student and the current event organizer.

The event is a competition for each team of 12-15 people to finish off a keg of beer faster than the other teams. A keg contains nearly 16 gallons of beer. According to GJPD Information Coordinater Kate Porras, it’s estimated that each team member will consume 12 beers. Keg-a-thon, whether the administration likes it or not, has been a well-attended tradition for Mesa State students. Last semester, nearly 700 signed up to compete. Even more people were their to watch. This spring’s Keg-a-thon was expected to draw a similar turnout.

This spring, only a week and a half before the event, Dolan was called into a meeting with the Grand Junction Police Department, as well as a State Liquor Law Officer.

They discussed various aspects of Keg-a-thon that would break liquor laws. The primary issue, according to Porras, is that the event would be serving alcohol to the public without a liquor license.

Another related issue is this: due to the large number of people expected to attend and also because it’s advertised on Facebook, Keg-a-thon would be considered an open event to the public.

“This is no longer a private event,” Porras said. The number of expected participants was nearly 700. Porras noted that there are no bars in town that can hold that size of crowd. “This event is basically operating as a bar, serving all of these people, without a license,” Porras said.

The GJPD had other concerns including underage drinking that may occur as well as the potential for drunk driving.

Dolan said that they check drivers’ licenses at the door but that there were probably underage kids with fake or borrowed IDs who would sneak in.

Other concerns involved the health, safety and welfare of participants and surrounding community members. Porras said that if any trouble occurs, the liability would fall solely on the organizers.

For these reasons, Dolan wrote a note on Facebook announcing the cancellation.

“Keg-a-thon is just not worth going to jail over,” Dolan said. At the conference, police made it very clear what consequences would result if Keg-a-thon were to be held on April 1 as planned. “They would confiscate all of the beer, as well as they could give everyone there a ticket for contributing to an illegal event,” Dolan said. “If there were any minors there the cops could ticket us with providing to minors.”

The issues raised by the police are valid. Serving 700 people in a backyard can hardly count as a private party, but perhaps the police could have tried to approach this issue more than a week before the event was expected to happen.

“I get that the police were just doing their jobs,” Dolan said, “It’s just a timing issue with me.”

The police, according to Porras, only found out about the spring Keg-a-thon a short time before they approached Dolan. However, this is an event that has been going on for over a decade. Even if the police weren’t aware of the spring Keg-a-thon that was schedule for April 1, they must have had experience with Keg-a-thons of the past. Last semester’s Keg-a-thon drew a similar sized crowd who had signed up to drink, said Dolan. Surely the police had to have noticed nearly 700 people were drunk last fall.

“(Cancelling Keg-a-thon) this close to the event was a big mistake,” Dolan said, “People are outraged.”

There is no doubt that this Keg-a-thon would be breaking the laws, but they were also breaking the same laws last semester at Keg-a-thon. This conversation between the organizers and the police should have taken place after last semester’s Keg-a-thon when it was apparent that laws were being broken. If the police could have shared their concerns with the event planners at that time, perhaps Dolan could have had time to fill out the appropriate paperwork in order to acquire a special events permit to serve alcohol this year.

There was failure on both sides to discuss the legality of the event after it had grown to nearly 10 percent of the college’s student population. Dolan and previous organizers should have looked into what liquor laws had to say about serving or selling alcohol to a large group. And the police should have approached Dolan earlier, giving him time to plan accordingly.

Even though this spring’s Keg-a-thon was cancelled, Dolan is planning on filling out the paperwork for next year so that the tradition continues.

cmartine@mesastate.edu