Among other provisions, Liacouras said, the university would require that the entrance to the new establishment be on Watts Walk inside the Temple campus and not on North Broad Street. Although the pub would be open to anyone, it would be especially interested in attracting Temple students, faculty members and staff, he said.
If awarded a lease, the Irish Pub would be the first establishment, apart
from the faculty dining club, to serve hard liquor on the Temple campus. A Saladalley Restaurant that opened at Temple in the spring has been serving beer and wine but no hard liquor.
Plans now call for the pub to lease space in a university-owned carriage house and two adjacent properties at Watts Walk and Norris Street, just north of Sullivan Hall. University officials said details of the lease, including its length, had not yet been worked out.
Proponents of the plan said the pub would help build up nightlife and weekend activity at the commuter school, most of whose 31,751 students are at least 21, the legal drinking age, according to university officials. Supporters also argued that it is safer to have students drink on campus than off campus.
"It comes down to reality," said board member Charles F. Schalch. "There are a lot (of students) who want to have a place to congregate."
Board member Edward H. Rosen said the pub should be seen as "part of the enhancement of the fabric of this community."
"We want this community to be a place where people will come and congregate under legal auspices," Rosen said.
The strongest objections came from the Rev. Henry Nichols, a board member who is a United Methodist minister in Germantown. He invoked the memory of the dead - the Rev. Russell Conwell, the Baptist minister who founded Temple more than 100 years ago, and the late state Rep. Alphonso Deal, (D., Phila.), a Temple trustee who died of cancer this year - in arguing against the plan.
"There are those who are not present here today who have strong convictions related to this matter," Rev. Nichols said. "I am not fully convinced they are not looking at us now.
"I, too, do not believe we need a taproom - no matter what dignified name we give it - on the grounds of the university."
Board member D. Donald Jamieson, another opponent of the plan, said the university would be accused of hypocrisy because it had successfully opposed the granting of licenses for hard liquor to commercial establishments on North Broad Street adjacent to the campus.
After the meeting, Liacouras said that he would continue to oppose the opening of new taprooms on Broad Street adjacent to the campus and that he found nothing inconsistent in his position.
"It's one thing to have a restaurant that serves hard liquor on campus, and it's something else to have it on Broad Street," Liacouras said.
Jonathan Libby, president of the Temple student body, hailed the board's action. He said the opening of the pub would increase student activity on campus and perhaps even attract more students to enroll at Temple.
Unlike the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University in West Philadelphia, Temple does not have a ring of commercial establishments, as University City does, to serve students, Libby said.
Mark O'Connor, an owner of the Irish Pub, said the pub would require patrons to present two forms of identification to prove that they are of legal drinking age. He said the pub also may issue special identification cards of its own.
Although hard liquor would be served, O'Connor said, the pub is to be ''more of a restaurant than a bar."
In other business, the board agreed to extend formal university recognition to Temple's 21 fraternities and sororities on a one-year trial basis. The measure, which was sought by those groups, is designed to give the university more regulatory power over the groups, but it also is to give the groups more access to university facilities and other benefits.
The board also appointed Steven R. Dirby, an assistant vice president for development and university relations at Penn, as vice president for development and alumni affairs. He replaces Rodney Johnson, who resigned several months ago to become a private consultant.
