Denying responsibility for failing campus bars, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Students, Jane Grenville has insisted that the future of uni drinking holes is down to the students.
“I wouldn’t drink in a campus bar unless I really had to,” says Grenville.
Following a debate on the collegiate system last week, she told Vision she believes “the bar system actually belongs to the students,” and that “students can make a difference.”
The bars, that Grenville describes as “grubby,” have faced the threat of being shut down beacuse of a lack of custom. However, she has explained that “there is no money to invest in them until people start drinking in them.”
But out-going Alcuin Chair Erik O’Connor blamed bar failure, inpart, on under-funding. He, along with certain YUSU Officers, suggest that the bars need more cash before they can attract more customers.
Yet Grenville has done little to reassure these critics. At last week’s debate, YUSU’s Societies and Communications Officer Rory Shanks asked her whether, if students didn’t use the bars more, “we’re just going to let them shut down,” to which the answer was “pretty much.”
However, Grenville remains optimistic, saying: “I hope that all the bars that are open at the moment will remain open.” She added, “Commercial Services will happily run any service that makes a profit,” and what they “like best, is making lots of money.”
Out-going Derwent Chair Oliver Lester agrees with Grenville’s opinion that the bar’s future is down to the students. “The solution isn’t just a bar refurbishment,” he told Vision, “as a JCRC we need to work hard to get people into our bars.”
But for JCRCs that fail to do this, losing college bars causes numerous welfare and social issues, especially for freshers in Autumn terms.
Grenville has also noted that “I would rather that people are drinking on campus [than in town], because I think it’s safer.”
Despite this optimism, Phil Kember, the uni’s Bars and Licensing Manager, has criticised the current way the bars are run, arguing for “less politics and more focus about what we can do about it in a positive way.”
The college debate was hosted by the Pro-Vice-hancellor for Students, the Club of PEP and The Yorker and examined the future of all aspects of York’s colleges.