Through community involvement and shared responsibility, the Hospitality Resource Alliance promotes sound business practices that influence customers to make healthy choices about their drinking and provides safe settings for informal public life that is essential to the community.
HRA stakeholders include representatives from local bars, the Liquor Control Board, Bellingham Police Department, University Police Department, WWU Associated Students, WWU’s Student Life, and WWU’s Sustainable Transportation, which runs the late-night shuttle.
The HRA originally formed in 1996 to bring together community members from diverse fields to discuss and support healthy businesses and safe communities. With the advent of the Campus Community Coalition in 1999, however, the HRA was folded into the membership of the Coalition and only met periodically until fall 2007, when it was reconvened with regular meetings. For HRA meeting minutes, click here.
The HRA operates on the premise of Shared Responsibility, which means
- No one has all the responsibility
- Everyone has some responsibility
- Everyone can contribute to solutions
- Small individual changes can make a big collective impact
Hospitality Resource Alliance initiatives include:
- Meetings and presentations
- Advice on Tap education campaign
- Promoting use of the WWU late-night shuttle
- Increasing alcohol and other drug emphasis patrols and other interagency enforcement of alcohol laws
Quotes from HRA members:
“The most valuable outcome of our regular meetings has been the replacing of assumptions with information, and the abandonment of adversarial attitudes in favor of cooperation. I was astonished at how many perspectives we had in common. The substantive differences between those in the hospitality industry, law enforcement, neighborhood representatives, and other community members turned out to be very minor. It turns out that we share the same goals; our meetings help us generate cooperative ways of reaching them.” – Bar Staff
“As someone in the hospitality business, it is valuable to me be able to meet with regulatory agencies and public/private groups in an informal setting and hear their concerns. As a result of our meetings, I would feel perfectly comfortable contacting any of the regulatory or enforcement agencies with a question or concern.” – Bar Staff
“What we are doing here is special; we communicate and resolve issues. “ – Liquor Control Board Lieutenant
“We are dealing with problems that have been around a long, long time… [HRA members] all are in this together and we all can do some things to provide a solution.” – Deputy Chief of Police
“We keep going to [HRA] meetings because we think the conversations happening there affect us as young people and musicians…We’re really excited that the HRA is around to get bar owners and law enforcement to talk to one another [and] we get to narrow our focus to the things more specifically relevant to us as musicians and bar-goers.” – Representative from Bellingham ‘s Downtown Alliance for Music and Nightlife.
As part of the Bellingham Nightlife…Advice on Tap campaign, the HRA produced a movie written by Brad Howard and Robert Bojorquez. Take a moment to watch “A Night On The Town.”
A Night On The Town from Robert Bojorquez on Vimeo.
