University pub still "nothing"
By Hannah Larking
News Editor
August 6, 2008
 The University pub has been bolted up since mid-April and according to UWSA president Tiffany Gooch, still no decisions have yet been made.
“As of right now, everything remains the same,” Gooch said, “There haven’t been any decisions, but we have been looking at a few different proposals, and the university has leant out a helping hand because they would like to see the pub opened and they want to help us in any way possible to get it open.”
It’s hard to believe that there is currently no action behind the closed doors that take up a large portion of the CAW Centre’s basement, but Gooch assures that it’s just that: “Right now it’s nothing. And the UWSA has no intentions of finding a quick fix. “I’ve always said that I wanted to make sure that any decision we made and any decision to open the pub had to be based on sustainable solutions and that we weren’t going to rush into opening it back up because there’s some quick fix,” Gooch explained.
“Really, it’s a band-aid thing. Do we want to put a band-aid on it so we can open it right away? Or do we want to have something that actually changes the initial problems we saw,” she added.
Gooch cited financial instability as a main concern and reason for the pub being shut down. “We were having a lot of difficulties and until we have something that’s not just a fix for this year but for future years we’re not revisiting this every year, we will not open it. Right now we’re really evaluating if these are solutions that will actually fix these fundamental problems and if they are, then we will be able to make the strides to get it open.”
The university administration has also stepped in to offer a helping hand in the decision making process, by suggesting ways in which the pub could save money.
Currently, student council is only discussing ways to reopen the space as a pub once again. As far as alternatives go, none have really been mentioned.
“Because we really have been putting a lot of our energy into seeing if there are any possibilities to open it again [as a pub]… the idea of what will be done with the space if it isn’t a pub, hasn’t been visited yet,” explained Gooch.
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