[OSM-talk] discussion: inclusion and alcohol

[Paul Norman]

On 11/1/2014 3:05 PM, Richard Weait wrote:
> I read this article recently and It got me thinking.  Do we devalue
> community members, or potential community members who don't drink?
>
> A quote from the article, "When alcohol is currency, non-alcoholic
> drinks are considered valueless, and the interests and needs of people
> who don’t drink alcohol are easily forgotten."
>
> Give it a read and let's talk.  Can we do better in the ways that the
> article suggests?
>
> https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/alcohol-and-inclusivity-planning-tech-events-with-non-alcoholic-options
We can do better. In fact, the OSM conferences I've been to have been 
quite bad for the expectation that everyone drinks alcohol. I can't 
personally speak to issues about safety, alcohol abuse, or being 
excluded by not drinking, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're there.

I seldom drink alcohol, or for that matter, fizzy drinks. When, on the 
rare occasion, I do drink alcohol, it is normally at most one drink. I'm 
open about this, but I'll generally use the excuse that I'm driving to 
avoid questions. I can'd do this at conferences, where it's no longer true.

I don't mind bars or pubs, provided that there are options other than 
alcohol. Unfortunately, at the past SOTM-US events I've attended, this 
is not always the case. The official after-conference events have tended 
to be loud venues with few non-alcoholic options, and those were 
difficult to obtain. When it takes five minutes to get water and it 
involves passing by multiple alcoholic drink coolers, there's something 
wrong. I have yet to go to an official after-conference event with any 
kind of juice selection. If a thousand dollars is being spend on beer, 
wine and cider, I don't think having water and a juice other than orange 
juice from concentrate is an unreasonable expectation.

Even though many local OSM social events are held in held in pubs, I've 
found them better. I've gotten fewer strange looks when I ask for 
something non-alcoholic, and they've been at venues where the focus has 
been on conversation, not drinking. I'm not uncomfortable around a table 
of people slowly drinking while talking.

As for some numbers, about a third of the people in the last meetup I 
had in a brewery-attached bar drank no alcohol that night. The inaugural 
Vancouver OSM meetup involved no alcohol at an evening social event, and 
no one complained at the lack. After it, a couple of us went to a pub, 
where we also drank no alcohol. A dozen of us, including drinkers, 
walked out of SOTM-US events with free alcohol because there was nothing 
to do there but drink. People who I've wanted to talk to at SOTM-US have 
not gone to some events because there was going to be nothing there but 
beer.

By having an alcohol focused event with no other options, you're forcing 
all of these people away.

This ended up being longer than I expected, but the more I thought about 
and talked to others, the more I realized we have a problem. I'm also 
not singling out SOTM-US because it's necessarily any worse, but because 
it's what I have experience with.

Paul