Joe SargentI am starting a new research field and anyone who wants to join me can feel free to contact me. What study you ask? It is the study of the migratory pattern of the downtown drinker.
If you have drank downtown you have probably witnessed this occurrence; drinkers roaming the streets moving from bar to bar for some reason or another.
The best example of this is the Tuesday night pint night war that has been going on for a few months now. Up until a few months ago, you could see crowds of drinkers making their way towards Frog & Peach Pub, pint glass in hand every Tuesday night.
Now there is a new bar in town, Downtown Brew (the old SLO Brew), and they have implemented a new Tuesday night pint night. The migration has begun, but soon there will be an overpopulation problem.
The crowd has come to Downtown Brew to try out the new deal: $1 for a pint of their own house beer or a few select drafts. As opposed to $1.25 for Bud or Bud Light at Frog & Peach – if you have a glass.
When my friends and I first stumbled, literally, into this new deal, we were shocked. One buck for a pint of porter, no glass and, at least in the beginning, it was less crowded then Frog & Peach.
Then they started coming, the crowds, and before I knew it that dollar I was spending was only getting me a plastic cup full of beer.
This bar scene seems to mimic the rise of America. The early settlers came to this country for open spaces and new opportunities. But then the great migration began, after everyone saw what was great about America, and soon the early settlers became bitter about the new droves of people using the resources, crowding the land and ruining what they had.
The drinker on a budget looking to get a cheap drink – those are the huddled masses of the downtown scene. They flock from bar to bar, knowing which deals are on what night; pint night at Frog & Peach and Downtown Brew, 2-for-1 at Fandango, Guinness at Blue. It’s the regular crowd you usually see at Mother’s Tavern.
But just like immigration issues these days, I don’t know what we have to do to solve the pint night fiasco.
So like a pilgrim that decides maybe the old country is not that bad, here I sit back in Frog & Peach. It’s less crowded and I get a true pint for my money.
So just like I would visit Las Vegas for a “crazy” vacation once in a while, I will stop in at Downtown Brew only when I am prepared to wait in a long line and wrestle my way to the bar. Maybe by studying the patterns of these drinkers we can better understand the complex immigration problems that face the world today.
Do you think there is a grant for that?