Brown and White Vol. 116 No. 7

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 all the lehigh news first vol 116 no 7 tuesday september 23 2008 high gas prices influencing some students to drive less by elizabeth murray gas prices have dropped from the summer's record-setting highs but lehigh students are still facing pain at the pump many restrict their driving through methods such as carpool ing using public transportation and biking this summer set many gas-price records with the highest recorded average price at 4.11 per gallon according to aaa.com the high summer prices have since declined but their effect on lehigh students remains significant frank vadino 11 said he was unable to bring a car to campus this year because he spent too much money on gas this summer i was driving a lot just for my commute every day vadino said the money that i spent was ridiculous although vadino did change his driving habits by driving slower and limiting his car travel to work he is still unable to keep a car at lehigh i didn't have much of a choice vadino said i can't afford the gas to get here and back other lehigh students with cars on campus are also concerned with high gas prices but have done little to change their driving habits sami christal 11 said she tries b&wphoto by chaucy dixon to limit her driving but because her parents pay for her gas the high prices don't affect her they know it's something that i can't afford christal said they also understand that it's important that i am able to drive and they're willing to help me out amy pakett 11 said her parents pay for her gas but she still tries to conserve she said she's lucky she doesn't pay for her own gas but for her dad's sake she tries to limit how often she drives i mainly use my car to buy gro ceries pakett said so now i car pool to wegman's with four of my although gas prices have dropped from a summer high students who drive are still affected by high prices some struggle to keep their cars on campus and students are relying on other forms of transportation to save money students receiving more notices for illegal file sharing by lindsay o'brien whether it's being played on an ipod blasting through a car stereo or being pumped through speakers at a frat party many college students are listening to illegally downloaded music last semester the university received about twice the usual amount of infringement notices from the music and motion picture industries according to lehigh security officer blair bernhardt the motion picture industry has been subpoe naing colleges to get the names of students found to be infringing on copyrights according to a press release from the motion picture association of america on jan 22 investigators for copyright holders track illegal downloaders on peer-to-peer file-sharing pro grams such as limewire gnutella and bit torrent by monitoring user activity and then obtaining a unique internet connection number called an in ternet protocol address the recording industry association of america and mpaa can trace user identities by seeking information about certain ip addresses through internet providers or in this case through a university when a lehigh student is caught an infringe ment notification is sent to bernhardt who then notifies the student and immediately blocks their network access we lock the port instantly because we have to bernhardt said it's the law to block access to the infringing materials and it keeps the university from being liable for anything bernhardt said the university receives any where from 200 to 300 of these letters per year but recent years have seen a noticeable increase he said with 500 coming in last semester this semester he has already received about 100 no restaurants face smoking ban most bars exempt by matt stayman â–  macgrady's the tally ho and leon's exempted from the smoking ban when a ban on smoking went into ef fect across pennsylvania on sept 11 the smoke cleared from most of the state's diners cafes and restaurants many of the south side's bars how ever will continue to allow smoking indoors after being exempted from the law the smoking ban signed by gov ed rendell on june 13 grants exemp tions to bars where 20 percent or less of annual revenue is obtained through food sales businesses that violate the ban can be fined for 250 for the first offense 500 for the second and $ 1,000 for each sub sequent offense bars that will continue to allow in door smoking include j p macgrady's the tally-ho tavern and leon's restau rant and bar michael maloney owner of j.p macgrady's said food sales account for about 17 percent of annual earnings at his establishment he said he sees their exemption from the law as a business opportunity very few places in pennsylvania still allow smoking he said i think we're going to get a lot busier maloney said customers have been supportive of his decision to continue to allow smoking we've got a lot of phone calls from people asking about it he said people want to smoke when they come to the bar i know a lot of people don't even smoke until they're drinking scott anderson bar manager of the tally-ho said a smoking ban at his bar would probably alienate loyal patrons keeping the status quo is probably the best idea right now he said anderson isn't convinced that the law will affect business at the tally ho largely because many of the other south bethlehem bars will still permit smoking restaurants however have changed their smoking policies to comply with the ban the restaurant sotto santi for merly casa mia was prohibited smok ing indoors a large sheet of paper taped to the door reads smoking permitted on patio only owner anthony spagnola said sotto santi currently generates about 50 per cent of its revenue from food sales spagnola expressed irritation at the regulation on his business but said he would comply i've got to just not think about it you've gotta obey the law he said do i think it'll hurt business no not really - people get mad and get over it in a week but what are you going to do for smokers at the restaurants the ban means that they have to go outside see gas prices page 2 see downloads page 4 see smoking page 3 the houses that men's soccer falls bethlehem library cans built at home changes parking page 7 i'm pagg 16 www.thebrownandwhite.com