All too often, what begins as an evening of laughter and drinking turns into a night destroyed by sexual assault.

Estimates say that about 70 percent of sexual assaults involve alcohol.

Although downtown bars are not responsible for what their customers do after they leave the establishments, Players Nite Club, 112 W. College Ave., has shown that they can make proactive attempts to prevent alcohol-related sexual assaults.

Players could have ignored the dangers of drinking and sexual assault, but instead, it has chosen to team up with the Centre County Women's Resource Center to launch a weeklong public awareness campaign in conjunction with Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The campaign, which ends Saturday, emphasizes the importance of consent. Male employees are wearing T-shirts that say, "I love consensual sex," and female employees are donning "Sex without consent is rape" T-shirts. The club will distribute items with the same message.

One might think that Penn Staters are smart enough to know that taking advantage of an intoxicated person is illegal, just as they should know that being drunk is not an excuse for forcing themselves on someone else. These crimes, however, occur with regularity, so the public awareness campaign is a helpful step to curbing the problem. We hope that other local businesses will follow suit.

Unfortunately, few downtown establishments took advantage of a similar project this summer.

Men Stopping Rape distributed urinal splashguards that said, "You hold the power to stop rape in your hands."

Café 210 West, 210 W. College Ave., and the Darkhorse Tavern, 128 E. College Ave., used the splashguards.

Hotel State College, 100 W. College Ave., however, an organization that owns several College Avenue businesses -- including Players -- declined the opportunity to use the splashguards because they could be "insulting to our customers," as the managing partner said.

We hope that Players' public awareness campaign is an indication that Hotel State College has reconsidered this stance and has begun to take a more active role in serving the community.

When a business realizes that it has the power to educate its patrons about something as important as sexual assault, everyone benefits. We hope that more businesses will exercise their power to improve State College through similar forms of public awareness campaigns.