Making KPU beer more available to students

KSA looks into expanding the services that the Grassroots provides students

Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s brewing program has been wildly successful with students and the community alike, which is why the next logical step would be to make student beer available at the student-owned and operated Grassroots Café.

At the moment, the Grassroots is a place where students can come in for a coffee or a meal, sit down with their friends, and discuss their homework or their favourite Netflix show. It’s not meant to extend the nightlife of the campus, as a bar would. However, the Kwantlen Student Association has been talking about what an on-campus bar would offer students—people could attend their evening and night classes and then nip over to the bar to continue their discussion over drinks without having to coordinate a migration effort somewhere off-site.

There are, however, some challenges that the student association would have to overcome if they aim to go ahead with the plan. From a financial point of view, the KSA would have to guarantee that a considerable amount of product will be sold to the people in charge of supplying it.

“Once you open a keg, you have a limited amount of time to use it . . . if it goes bad then you can’t serve it,” says Alex McGowan, vice-president external of the KSA.

On that same financial note, the Grassroots would have to look into hiring more workers to work the additional evenings and, of course, Friday and Saturday afternoons.

“Student bars, where they are available, are very popular with students; they can be viable business options, so we’d have to work on the amount of student activity, especially on Saturdays,” says McGowan.

Another important factor would be the safety of  the staff, students, and other members of the KPU family on campus. “The thing with bars is that they are open until late and we would to deal with the reality of students being drunk on campus,” says the KSA’s vice-president of finance, Waheed Taiwo. “We have to know what we are going to do if something happens, which will increase the need for security throughout the day,”

On a positive note, the KSA is looking into financing a new building on the Surrey campus which would provide a possible location for an on-site bar. The new building would also offer the Grassroots an opportunity to expand into a more restaurant-style facility.

“A possibility would be to transfer Grassroots and open up a bigger kitchen, this would give students the opportunity to have better food options on campus,” says MacGowan.

KPU has hundreds of students walking through its halls and rooms every day and they all would benefit from services that add to their life on campus. While a bar would require a significant increase in planning, expenses, and liability for the university and its staff, expanding the services that are already available would be a more viable option. KPU already has its own brewing facilities where our peers are working hard to create KPU brew, so the logical next step would be to bring kegs of it and make KPU beer available to all of-age students and staff on campus.