I’ve heard a lot of complaining recently about bars in Charleston cracking down on underage drinking and the use of fake IDs. If that is the case, it’s a real bummer for a lot of students on campus.

It seems in the past the majority of Charleston bars have taken the approach of letting patrons in as long as they have a state form of identification that says the individual is 21. Oh yeah, and hopefully the photo on the ID shows some kind of resemblance to the person who is using it.

And why wouldn’t a bar want to use this approach? They want as many people with “valid” IDs entering their establishments as possible, so they can make as much money as possible. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Likewise, students with “valid” IDs also want to go to these establishments so they can have a good time and see friends. There’s nothing wrong with that either.

The only thing that is technically wrong is that it’s against the law. But many students on campus think that law is as insignificant as removing tags from every mattress in town.

But with all this talk of Project 21, the state’s initiative to cut down on underage drinking, bars may be forced to change their approaches and many of the underage drinkers with “valid” IDs are getting a little worked up. Suddenly cutting off mattress tags doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The law now seems a little more real, and underage students are becoming more and more concerned. They’re not as willing to chance it. And not willing to take a risk with bouncers at local bars has led to a serious cutback in these underage students’ partying options.

The only real winner in this situation is the law. The bars don’t want to lose money by turning away more students. The students don’t want to be left secretly drinking in dorm rooms or wandering around looking for house parties. And the police likely don’t want to be left with the extra paperwork of writing up drinking tickets.

In my four years on this campus, there have been the periodical bar scares. Consecutive days of bar raids or rumors of busts have keep underage drinkers away from the bars before. But those usually pass.

Whether this current scare will pass is uncertain. But one thing is for sure, things could be a lot worse.

Take, for example, other schools in the Ohio Valley Conference, Eastern’s athletic league. Three of those institutions (Murray State, Tennessee Tech and Tennessee-Martin) are all located in dry counties, meaning the sale or purchase of alcohol is prohibited in some form.

In Cookeville, Tenn., at Tennessee Tech, the sale of alcohol is restricted to just restaurants. For Tech, Putnam County only allows a minimal amount of alcohol to be sold with food. And that was only passed within the past five years.

In Murray, Ky., Calloway County didn’t allow the purchase or sale of alcohol anywhere until last year. Now selected establishments can sell liquor by drink, but no more than 30 percent of the establishment’s sales can come from alcohol.

And in Martin, Tenn., Weakley County completely prohibits the public sale and purchase of alcohol. University officials say the only way to buy a beer in Martin is to go to a privately owned country club. No beer, no bars, no fun.

I remember going to Murray State twice in the past two years and hearing their students tell tales of driving a half an hour to cross county lines and get their hands on a case of beer. I’m sure students at Martin and Tech have similar experiences.

There’s even schools with bars that have it worse off than Eastern. Friday night I was stuck in Richmond, Ky., for Saturday’s football game. The town had a decent enough bar scene, but then we found out the bars close at midnight. Factor in a one-hour time difference, and it’s like going home at 11 p.m. Most students here don’t even go out until 11 p.m.

So for those of you underagers waiting for the bar scare to cool off, remember it could be a lot worse. Instead of sneaking beer into the dorm or finding someone of age to buy it for you, you could be left making a covert 40-minute late-night drive across county lines to buy a beer.

And for those of you who do make it out to the bars, the same is true. Instead of leaving the bar at 1 a.m. on a Friday and going to after-hours parties, you could be left twiddling your thumbs in a hotel room with a measly buzz at 11 p.m.

Bill Ruthhart is a senior journalism major and a biweekly columnist for The Daily Eastern News. His e-mail address is [email protected]. Columns are the opinion of the author.