My Hometown Is Trying to Crack Down on Rooftop Drinking and I Think It’s Adorable

I think we can all agree that day drinks taste better on a roof. In a flat university town like London, Ontario, this is one of a few simple pleasures you can count on every summer.

So of course, city councillors are trying to revise bylaws to make this illegal. And maybe worse, there’s an apparent effort to rebrand the rooftop party as “brewfing.”

(Please, whoever you are—likely a newspaper reporter who heard it said once—stop trying to make “brewfing” happen.)

The move adds to a public nuisance bylaw that was put in place after students inexplicably rioted on St. Patrick’s Day in 2012, another half-baked attempt to outlaw stupidity. A report to be presented in council this week cites risk of falling (duh), and collapsing roofs as reason to impose up to $750 in fines.

“It’s a matter of protecting people from themselves,” Ward 6 Councillor Phil Squire told the London Free Press. “I was amazed at the number of people up on very steep roofs, and inebriated. It seems to be an attraction. I don’t know why.”

I would invite Squire to half-drunkenly climb a fire escape, jump across a three-foot gap between buildings, and not feel like a fucking super human. Honestly, what is the point of fun if you don’t risk breaking a limb to have it?

It is rare that I advocate for any part of the hyper-bro culture that my hometown is known for. But I can’t let one of the few good things about summertime in London go undefended. I would equate the social application of rooftop parties to the way West Coast people go camping. There’s a ritual to setting up and tearing down; it gives young brains a new endorphin-soaked mental space that’s totally separate from boring retail/student life.

Secondly, I think police might have a harder time than they think enforcing this. How will they identify these rooftop drinkers without climbing up there themselves? And who will pay this $750 fine if said roof belongs to a local business, not a tenant?

Read More: Teens Don’t Party Like They Used to, Study Says

Certainly the people living in central student ghetto houses are going to have the hardest time. I have many fond memories of passing joints on dilapidated rooftop additions on the corner of Cheapside and Richmond. As the most visible spots in the city, they’ll probably face the most heat.

But in my humble opinion, those eight-and 12-foot stretches of slanted shingles always ranked second to the more elusive downtown roof. In my later student days I lived on Horton Street—the so-called wrong side of the tracks—which was host to some of the best and never-busted rooftop shenanigans. These were also the more dangerous spots to access, requiring us to toss magnums of terrible whisky to friends scrabbling along the side of an abandoned garage.

When I think back to all those dumb kid risks, I wonder if knowledge of some bylaw would somehow change our plans.

To that I say, nope, no fucking way. Some things are best left to Darwinism.

Lead image: The Replacements’ Let It Be—good advice to London city council, tbh.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.