For many members of UT’s 6,600 thriving population, a night consumed with dancing, high-energy music, and alcohol is considered a norm of college society. However, some students will never see past the front door of these clubs. Their rejection was based solely upon the fact that they were international students who could not produce a passport during the time of entry into a night club.
Upon asking Kwesi Ampofo, an international sophomore from Ghana, Africa, about his experiences with college life in the United States, he replied, “Here people party more, get out of control more [as opposed to life in Ghana].” Ampofo also mentioned that the legal drinking age where he’s from is eighteen, whereas the U.S. requires consumers to be at least twenty-one years of age. “People just don’t drink as much back home,” he suggests, “probably because it’s legal. The rebellion to drink heavily doesn’t exist where I’m from because it’s permitted for young adults.”
When questioned about his passport in regards to going clubbing, Ampofo insisted that using a passport as adequate identification was “bothersome.” However, he professed, “of course I’ll still go to the club, I do have a life.” He still readily attends clubs such as Asia, The Spot, Prana, and Luxury Box, most of which only accept passports as valid identification from international students.
Ampofo doesn’t feel entirely safe using the one item that can return him easily to Africa as a passkey into the club scene, but he will continue to rely upon it in order to go out with his friends as opposed to trying to enter with his native ID card, which gives him the chance to be rejected.
Another UT student, Karsten Klink, a freshman from Germany, shares the same reluctance when using a passport to enter clubs in Tampa. Klink compares the use of a passport to an invasion of privacy, so he is thankful for his dual citizenship, which allows him to use a military card as confirmation in most clubs where UT and USF students regularly attend.
According to representatives employed at The Drynk and The Kennedy, two clubs in close proximity to UT’s campus, using passports as valid identification helps to “decrease the utilization of fake IDs,” which are often used by underage college students in order to attend on twenty-one and up exclusive nights and acquire alcoholic drinks at the bars on a regular basis.
The representatives claim that the bouncers and security protecting the clubs prefer to only accept passports from international students since they are “virtually impossible” to duplicate.
Although students who desire to attend clubs would rather prefer to be permitted with their IDs from their native countries, using a passport to enter clubs seems to be only a minor hassle to the vast majority of UT’s international students.
Dani Carpenter can be reached at danielle.carpenter@spartans.ut.edu.