Closed door policy for Wadham bops
WADHAM COLLEGE may have to close its doors to students from other colleges during bops after concerns over fire regulations forced a review of their policy earlier this week. Wadham's bops, which include Queer Bop and ‘Wadstock', are highly popular with students across the University. However, recent renovation work undertaken on the JCR has decreased the floor space available, taking its fire-safety capacity down to just 180 people.
Last week a meeting of the College's Liaison Committee took the provisional decision to ban members of other colleges from attending bops in order to conform to regulations. Wadham entz rep James Talbot acknowledged that enforcing this ban would be difficult. He said: “The new regulations would mean having a student on every entrance checking that only members of the college were admitted, and it's not really something we want to have to do.” There is still some hope the ruling may be avoided.
A room below the JCR is often used during the larger bops, and opening up this extra space for all bops would significantly increase the capacity. Wadham's domestic bursar, Pauline Linieres-Hartley, told The Oxford Student: “We did an experiment last week using the other room as well, which worked quite well, so we hope not to have to reduce our capacity too much.
However, under new licensing laws, which came into force last week, establishments selling drink will be subject to heavy fines for disorderly behaviour, as well as having to pay out for drink-related injuries.
Despite this, Talbot assured The Oxford Student that the most popular bops should not be affected: “During the Queer Bop and Wadstock extra marquees are brought in and the capacity is greatly increased, so members of other colleges shouldn't be forced to miss out on some of the best bops of the year."
17th Feb 2005