Volume XIV, Number 3
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina
September 5, 1978
Mixed feelings about mixed drinks
By Nancy Davis
I Liquor-by-the-drink. Both sides say
they’re only trying to make the electorate
aware of the facts. Both sides have
organized committees working throughout
the state in an effort to get as many
voters to the polls as possible. Both sides
have based their campaigns on the
emphasis they’re only looking out for the
welfare of the people.
Well, on Sept. 8, the people of
Mecklenburg County will determine
exactly who has done the best job of
persuading. And the eyes of the state are
upon them. Four days later, voters in
Orange County, Southern Pines and Black
Mountain will hold referendums. Then on
Sept. 20, Louisburg and Sanford will
make a decision, and on Sept. 22 in Dare
County. No other votes are expected until
next year.
J After days of heated debate in the
NC General Assembly during their June
session, the legislature voted to approve
local option. They did not, however,
make any provisions for enforcement of
laws or under what specifications of
conditions mixed drinks would be sold.
North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt
appointed a statewide committee to form
these regulations. The committee is
holding hearings across the state to receive
input in determining what exactly should
be included in these regulations.
■ In Charlotte, the pro-liquor group
calls themselves "Mecklenburg Mixed
;Beverage Committee.” They’ve hired Jerry
Breen, a Charlottcan who has run such
noted campaigns as Ken Harris’ mayoral
upset and Mecklenburg County’s airport
bond referendum. This campaign is
High cost of textbooks
seems like a “ripoff”
By Cheryl Leopard
■ “Um, I’ve been standing in line an
hour. How long does it take to buy a
book?”
“Well, 1 finally got into the
Bookstore, but, whew, these prices!”
I “$15 for one book! Wow, the
Bookstore is making a fortune.”
I These are just some of the comments
heard during “rush week” at the
Bookstore. But after the rush is over and
everyone has their books, life at the
Bookstore is back to normal and these
comments are rarely heard.
The Bookstore is on campus to serve
the students. The bestselling item, of
course, is the textbook, with the next
bestselling item being supplies. Lastly, the
store offers a variety of miscellaneous
items, including shirts, glasses, tennis balls,
toothbrushes, etc.
Students commonly refer to the
purchase of textbooks as the great
■rip-off.” Jim Meeredy, manager of the
Bookstores explained the rip-off.
The books are priced according to the
publishers advertised list price. The
publisher sells the texts to the Bookstore
80 percent of this price, giving the
Bookstore a 20 percent discount. The
Bookstore then sells the books to the
another rough one for Green. Even
though Charlotte has approved
liquor-by-the-drink twice before in 1971
and 1973, it was never by more than 16
percent.
Green admits victory in 1978 “ain’t
that much of a sure thing.” This is the
first time he says there has been “very
strong formal opposition...that could
easily overcome that 16 percent spread.”
Green feels the “opposition is basically
running its campaign to defeat it
(liquor-by-the-drink) with assumptions and
emotionalism.”
The anti-liquor committee, “The
People Who Care,” is chaired by
Henderson Belk. They have run a heavy
advertising campaign, spending $34,000
already and raising $36,000 to use in
keying up voter participation during the
students at list price, thus making a 20
percent profit.
Out of this 20 percent comes
operating costs and the real profit, noting
of course, the publisher are making a
profit, too. Following is a breakdown of
how the average textbook dollar is spent:
author - 12.2 cents
publisher - 6.6 cents
publisher services - 5.0 cents
publisher’s production and editorial
expense — 28.4 cents
publisher's sales and promotional
expenses - 11.4 cents
taxes — 8.0 cents
other publisher’s expenses - 8.4 cents
Bookstore operating expenses 12.0
cents
Bookstore salaries - 7.0 cents
income to Bookstore - 1.0 cents
The total income for the publisher is
51.4 cents per dollars, while the total
income to the Bookstore is 20 cents, and
only one cent of that is profit.
“We, in the Bookstore,” Meeredy
said, “have endeavored to control the high
costs of textbooks to the best of our
ability. We perform a buyback function
within the Bookstore on a daily basis in
an attempt to buy as many used books
(continued on page nine)
last week. An extensive telephone
campaign has also been conducted to
register voters in Mecklenburg and now
they will be working as extensively on
getting enough mixed drink foes to the
polls.
It has seemed from the beginning to
be a battle between anti-liquor church
groups and pro-liquor business interests.
Charlotte stands to gain much from the
tax and economic benefits of serving
mixed drinks, but that isn’t being stressed
as much as the control liquor-by-the-drink
would put on alcohol consumption. The
Mixed Beverage Committee is offering
statistics of other neighboring states
showing a decrease in drunk driving and
public drunkenness.
The People Who Care, however, are
pointing out $1,000 contributions from
“Even with worrying over problems with the apartments, there's always time to
(photo by Bob Henderson)
Plagued with problems
Apartments to improve
By James Braswell
It’s not a common fact around
UNCC but the Residence Life office is
housing 248 guinea pigs.
Fact is, the situation the UNCC
apartment residents have been overcome
by was purely an accident - an accident
caused by “a lack of planning and
experience, and some really bad luck,”
Residence Life Director Jack Tyler
explained.
Currently no one in the situation is
happy - not the students, the Residence
Life office, or Ed Ayers, Physical Plant
director. Tyler says of Ayers, “I’m
surprised he has any hair left after all
this.”
Well, the problems - the initial ones
are with the apartments. Air
conditioning units that leak, sinks
stopped up, bad plumbing. Was it bad
craftsmanship? “If you don’t want to
quote me ‘yes’: if you want to quote me
‘yes’,” Tyler said.
The next step would be to get the
contractors to come out and fix the
problem they initiated, but it doesn’t
work that easily.
Many of the contractors have
already received their money for the
work and now place any “fix-it” work
for UNCC on a low priority. In short,
North Carolina National Bank, the
Charlotte Observer and several large hotels
are being given to the pro-liquor
committee. They are also saying alcohol
consumption would increase if mixed
drinks sales are allowed.
The state is watching. The Sept. 8
referendum has been described as a “test
case.” The one thing both sides do agree
on is if liquor-by-the-drink passes in
Charlotte, the chance of it passing
elsewhere is much greater. The last week
of campaigning is here. The Mixed
Beverage Committee is forming carpools
to bring college students in from Chapel
Hill, Boone, Raleigh and Greenville and
the People Who Care have reported they
will spend every cent that comes in during
the week on advertising. Right now, it’s
anybody’s ballgame.
they want to take their own sweet
time” to come out and fix it.
“So sue them.” Nope. The legalities
of a lawsuit can be translated into two
simple words, red tape, which means
time. Residence Life doesn’t have time,
not with the apartments already
inhabited.
Residence Life then brought in the
Physical Plant to try to correct things,
and they have other responsibilities, thus
the work can sometimes be slow.
Naturally, students who have an
apartment with a problem (or problems)
are upset. They complain to apartment
managers Pete Byam and Forrest Bowen.
Byam says, “The thing that irritates
me most is the maintenance problems.
You report the stuff and it seems it
never gets done. Then they say they
corrected the problem, then something
else goes wrong. It should be getting
over soon, I hope.”.
Indeed, relief may be on its way.
Tuesday, between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., a
crew consisting of the Residence Life
office staff, the apartment managers and
several persons from the Physical Plant,
including Ayers, will gather at the
apartments’ mailboxes and go with each
resident (one representative from each
(continued on page nine)