David Michael Miller
The Biergarten at Olbrich Park offers some truly spectacular views of Lake Monona. Even the blue-green algae blooms, on a recent visit to the biergarten, did little to dampen the beauty of the open water, cruising boats and downtown skyline. It didn’t hurt that the biergarten serves stellar soft pretzels from Clasen’s European Bakery. An afternoon looking at a lake is always better with a pretzel. And, while my evidence is purely anecdotal, the biergarten looks to be drawing in more people to Olbrich than in recent memory.
As far as the beer goes, staff also does a very good job preventing people from being overserved and underaged people from being served at all. Customers can only order one beer at a time, meaning that everyone at the table has to go up to the bar when the group wants to order another round.
In isolation, I like the biergarten. But, when thinking of Madison as a whole, the biergarten is yet one more place to buy beer in a town where there are many, many places to buy beer. While the staff serve extremely responsibly, they are still selling alcohol on public park land. We have created one more place where we send the message that alcohol = fun.
Alcohol is everywhere in Madison, particularly during the summer. The Memorial Union Terrace, on those rare nights when the city isn’t being hit by a torrential rainstorm, is packed with revelers and empty beer pitchers alike. Concerts on the Square probably accounts for a good chunk of Wollersheim Winery’s annual business. Madison never had a sustainable baseball team until the Mallards added, among a number of other innovations, an All-You-Care-To-Drink section. Madison’s craft breweries and distilleries serve distinctive beverages that are as valid and vital forms of creative expression as any painting or poem. Every movie theater, except one, serves beer now.
I also know how vital alcohol sales are for many people’s livelihoods, including my own. This editorial critiquing the omnipresence of alcohol will be paid, in part, by alcohol advertising. As a comedian, every single comedy show I’ve done has been subsidized by alcohol sales at the bar.
Just like the biergarten, on an individual level, none of the activities I listed are bad. Most of them are fun, relatively harmless, ways to relax. I don’t blame individual business owners either — Madisonians want to drink and businesses are just meeting consumer demand. But all this omnipresent drinking adds up. Going out and getting a couple of beers once or twice a week is one thing, but what happens when it’s a couple of beers every time you leave the house?
There are the obvious signs when a neighborhood has too many bars — just take a look at the stretch of University Avenue where a row of cavernous bars and clubs overflows with patrons every Friday and Saturday night. Fights regularly break out on the sidewalk. One of those fights played a role in the homicide of Jameel Easter last month. Easter was only 25 years old and he’s dead because of a bar fight.
But then there are the less obvious signs. While alcohol sales are important for our economy, our drinking habits cost us a lot too. A 2013 report by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute showed that excessive drinking costs Wisconsin $6.8 billion a year, with more than 40 percent of that tab paid by taxpayers.
Our habits today are also shaping tomorrow’s drinkers. A 2010 study funded by the National Institutes of Health showed that teenagers who live in areas with a higher density of alcohol vendors begin underage drinking sooner. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says that children of parents who binge drinks are, themselves, much more likely to binge drink.
We need to ask ourselves, as a city, when we’ve had enough to drink. The Madison area will continue to grow, from downtown to Sun Prairie. That additional development is going to lead to more proposals for more alcohol outlets and we will need to make difficult decisions about density as part of that. We have to think of future proposals not as a standalone business but as part of the overall health of the community. A couple of years ago, Mayor Paul Soglin decided his line in the sand was a frite shop that wanted a beer/wine license as part of a last-ditch attempt to keep its business open. I’m not saying we go that far. But I’m glad he started the conversation.
Please go and enjoy The Biergarten at Olbrich Park. It’s really quite lovely. But while you are there savoring a brew and a pretzel, ask yourself whether Madison needs any more bars in public parks.
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons and blogs at Madland.
