New rules for Friday bars: What will the changes mean for you?

Health:  

Friday bars/social associations: 4

"I think we reached a sensible compromise where the Friday bars can accept the senior management team's demands for more control," says the resigning chairman at Sport Science Ditte Marie Søndergaard.

However, she will not relax too much before the new routines have been incorporated and – not least – before the new alcohol licenses are granted.

"Compared to say medicine we’re a little organisation here at Sport Science and each member therefore has to put in more work than in the larger associations where there are more students to share the burden," she says. 

Chief Adviser Anders Roed (the Dean's Office, Health) guarantees that the bars will be able to get all the help and guidance they need. He does not expect the new rules to have particularly large consequences for the bars at Health.

"Of course there are one or two things where you’ll have to be describe things like the assignment and division of roles more precisely. But the students visiting the bars won’t notice much of a difference," he says.

Arts:

Friday bars/social associations: 16

At Arts the management has drawn up a separate supplement to the general regulations for AU's Friday bars.

Rolf Sørensen, the chairman of History’s Friday bar (FRED), understands the need for clear agreements, but he believes that Arts has gone too far with its rules and regulations.

"The management has taken control, and in reality, there are orders where there ought to be negotiations. We’ve been treated like a flock of teenagers," he says.

A point of view that disappoints Arts Administration Centre Manager Ole Jensen.

"We’ve really held a lot of meetings to find the best way to do this," he says.

According to the administration centre manager, the concentration of Arts bars in the Nobel Park next to offices and classrooms has been the central factor in creating the need for a supplement to the general regulations.

"There have been a number of complaints about the bars and that is something we have to deal with. Unfortunately, we also have examples of theft, vandalism and premises that have not been cleaned and made ready for general use," he says.         

This is one of the reasons why Arts requires that security guards be present at the Friday bars.  

ST: 

Friday bars/social associations: 13

Bent Lorenzen, head of building services at ST, expects that the bars will quickly come to an agreement with the management of the various departments.

Previously, not all of the Friday bars had regular closing hours. Now they will have to enter a permanent agreement. But the departments at ST haven’t been dissatisfied and do not as such want to change the bars," says Bent Lorenzen.

Lise Trier Nielsen, chairman of the Friday bar at Physics, confirms that there has so far been a good collaboration with the department management team and she expects to continue more or less as before.

"Generally speaking the new rules won’t mean any major changes for the Physics Friday bar. We’ll have some extra work as everything has to be registered, but on the other hand, having more structured areas of responsibilities will actually be very nice," she says.

Halvor Høen Hval, chairman of Nanorama (who organise the Nanobar) also welcomes the idea of common guidelines but is sceptical about the opening hours aspect. 

"I still haven’t heard any good arguments for why we should go into town instead of carrying on in a cosy Friday bar on campus after ten o’clock on Friday evening," he says.

BBS:

Friday bars/social associations: 5

The new rules are not unfamiliar to the bars at BSS, which have always been well-organised, according to Dean Svend Hylleberg.  

"The bars are already in full compliance with the requirements in the regulations, so there will be no changes to our practice," says the dean.

The management at BSS has drawn up a separate set of regulations that apply to the Studenterlauget and the Economic Association, and chairman of the Economic Association Martin Nørskov Sørensen is satisfied with them.    

"It’s not such a radical change for us as it maybe is for some of the other bars. The rules really just bring together many of the verbal agreements that we’ve previously had," he says. 

All the bars at BSS also themselves pay to have security guards present. 

BACKGROUND:

In 2012 a number of subjects at Arts and BSS moved to new addresses. This gave rise to a collaboration between the management of these two main academic areas and the students leading to the adoption of common guidelines for Friday bars in the Nobel Park. About six months later in October 2013 the senior management team set up a working group tasked with discussing proposals for general shared guidelines for all Friday bars at AU. The police came into play in March 2014 when they informed AU that all Friday bars must have their own alcohol license. The final regulations were adopted before the summer holidays in June.

Translated by Peter Lambourne.