COLUMN: "I'm Not Going Anywhere"

From Mark Tonsetic's "Java Daze," Fall '95 From Mark Tonsetic's "Java Daze," Fall '95Joe Murphy is not about to leave University City. "I was born and raised here," he says, as a trickle of passion creeps into his Philadelphia brogue. "All my family, all their lives are in this area. Where else would I go?" It was only natural, then, for Joe Murphy to open Murphy's Irish Tavern on St. Patrick's Day, 1960. He became the proprietor of the neighborhood's social heart. It was different then, a place where the locals could gather after work in the spirit of civic camaraderie. The tavern was the last bastion of civil interaction before television, and the education it provided to the few students that ventured by was as valuable as any professed within Ivy-draped classrooms. Murph doesn't look like the type that would enjoy Bob Dylan, but one would bet that he has heard his jukebox sing about the times that are a'changin'. "Years ago," he recalls, "half of the clientele were neighborhood people. But the neighborhood has changed." For the worse? "Yeah." The years passed, the buildings creaked a little more, and his patrons trickled out into the wilds of Center City or suburbia. "My place was always one people would walk to. Why drive when you can just walk around the corner and go home? But Center City you have to drive to. Look at the places on South Street, Delaware Avenue -- their parking lots are filled on a Friday or Saturday night, for four or five hours at a time." The flight of the locals from University City corresponded to increases in drunk-driving statistics across the board, and the Pennsylvania State Police lent their enforcement weight to a previously small bureaucracy, Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board. In the 1980's, the LCB stepped up a highly visible campaign of raids against establishments suspected of any number of alcohol-related violations. The principal victims of this crusade? Not the half-dozen speakeasies that Murph will tell you exist in the local area. Not the giant clubs along Delaware Avenue or in the heart of downtown. Rather, the crusaders steamrolled the neighborhood taverns -- the places where a familiar, friendly face was more important than identification in triplicate -- as Murph calls them, the "easy pickings." Two Saturday nights ago, Joe Murphy conceded a $30,000 fine to the LCB with a tough grace that was part Hemingway, part Philadelphia, and altogether Irish. It wasn't necessary. He could have gone down in an ugly street fight against the fine, which in this columnist's opinion was nothing but illicit taxation under the pretense of law enforcement. LCB officers demonstrated that they were unconcerned in principle with underage drinking. Despite an hour's work undercover, the police allowed anyone that had seen their twentieth birthday to leave, anonymously and quickly. The reason for this apparent dereliction of duty? Under recent Pennsylvania laws that penalize bar owners for the sins of their customers, a bust is a bust regardless of the number of people caught. Customers may not have the money to pay for their misdemeanor, but the bar usually does. Like a speeding ticket on an empty desert highway, this illegal tax makes a nice ka-ching in the Commonwealth's register. One Harrisburg source, quoting official monthly reports, revealed that the booze cops generate state revenue in the amount of $1.2 million per year. For all the recent gubanatorial campaign talk about law and order, Harrisburg is essentially using individuals it trained as police officers to work as tax collectors. Every hour that they spend "undercover" with a pitcher of Killian's is an hour that they aren't keeping students from getting mugged, abducted, or worse. In rooting out the supposed crimes and eventual livelihood of small business, Pennsylvania law enforcement ensures that street crime and urban blight regain their place in the local environment. Though Penn turf on the weekend, Murphy's Irish Tavern is for the rest of the week a tavern of the neighborhood and its inhabitants. Murph is fully aware of the local consequences should he sell under LCB pressure, though he has no intention of doing so. Even if the liquor license goes, he's determined to stick with his roots: "It may have to be Murphy's Pizza Shop in a year or two, but I'm not going anywhere." Still, Murph's was never just a neighborhood thing. On a sweltering afternoon three years ago, about fifteen students from this year's senior class took a dip into The Bacchae, Euripides' tale of how Apollo's girls let it all hang out for the god of wine. Since then, at least two thousand such students have seen the lesson made flesh at 44th and Spruce. Joe Murphy has always been University's grizzled Bacchus, and his tavern has been as much a part of a Penn student's experience as the Econ 1 exam or a blowout of Princeton in the Palestra. Murph has never had any contact with University officials, even though his name has been at least as famous among the student body as any University president's. Has the University considered what it will do if the LCB walls off this institution from the Penn community? Sorry, but neither increased performing arts space nor CHATS is going to cut it (an espresso bar and taco stand? Yeah, right -- I'll see ya in church). If Euripides had any lesson for Penn, it was that a life without Bacchus makes for misery. Besides, Joe Murphy has always been there for Penn students and alums, whether through senior screamers or the graduation party he holds annually. As he described this last event, Murph paused wistfully: "I hope I'm around this year to do it." If he isn't, the social frustrations Penn could face might be severe. He had refused other post-raid interviews, he explained, because Saturday night had left him too stunned to put it all in perspective. Maybe the neighborhood wasn't quite home anymore. Fortunately, Penn holds on to the spirit of its founding: leges sine moribus vanae. Murph described the invitations he had received to speak, the offers to raise money for his legal costs, the petition that someone offered to circulate. Still, he refuses handouts and is adamant about staying. The interview trails off, and I ask him about the nominations he's received on the Internet to speak at this year's Commencement. "Nah," he replies. "I'd be nervous." Mark Tonsetic is a senior international relations and economics major from Winter Springs, Fla. Java Daze appears alternate Mondays.