Many students who drink alcohol at NIU go through the same ritual with every bottle of booze they consume.

Buy the bottle, drink the bottle, then display the bottle for all to see. But for students living in the university’s residence halls, displaying the bottle is not an option.

According to the university’s Guidepost publication – the “rule book” for all residence halls – “Persons under 21 years of age may not possess or consume alcoholic beverages (or display alcoholic beverage containers) in university residence halls.”

Keith Kruchten, president of the Residence Hall Association, said displaying these containers is against the rules if you can’t purchase them.

“I cannot say exactly why this act is prohibited,” Kruchten said, “but my feeling would be that it would promote underage drinking in the residence halls.”

Kruchten went on to say he hasn’t heard of this being a problem in the halls, but he doesn’t find out about everything that happens on every floor in every hall.

Terry Jones, associate director of the judicial offices, was more specific about why underage students can’t show off what they drink.

“Most problems we have involve alcohol,” Jones said, “and if the bottle is empty, how did it get empty?”

Flaunting these bottles while underage is a residence hall violation, and will earn violators a $50 fine, but the university will not involve the police.

University Police Lt. Matt Kiederlen said it is the contents of the bottle that are illegal for underage students to have, not the bottle itself.

“If there is any sort of residue of alcohol in the bottle, then they are in possession,” Kiederlen said, “but a 19-year-old could have a bottle of Jack Daniels filled with root beer and we would have no way of telling the difference.”

Senior marketing major Brad Weber said he lives off-campus and avidly displays his bottles of finished liquor.

“I like to get a good collection going, whether it’s good alcohol, bad alcohol or just some 40s,” Weber said. “They are like little trophies that you get for killing off a bottle.”

Weber displays the empty bottles on top of the cabinets in his apartment, and he has everything from a 40-ounce bottle of beer to bottles of vodka and whiskey.

When asked what he plans on doing with the bottles once he moves out, Weber said they don’t hold much sentimental value, and he’ll probably just throw them out.