Hafrey said he signed onto the entertainment license request so that the formal could go on, but decided not to take on the alcohol license, out of worries of legal liability.

While House Committee (HoCo) members said they were initially upset that the formal would have to run dry, they ultimately came to understand Hafrey’s hesitance.

“He would have had to have assigned his personal liability to every person at that party,” HoCo Co-President Zachary A. Corker ’04 said. “I wouldn’t have signed it either.”

“I felt quite confident that we could address the terms of the entertainment license—that the party could be kept quiet,” Hafrey said. “The liquor license by contrast—we have no control over student consumption of alcohol before and around the formal.”

But the commission’s action left many in Mather House disappointed.

“Our frustration is, in trying to provide social outlets for students, we come across bumps in the road at every turn,” Corker said. “We know that our masters are working for us, and we hope that other masters and the administration are doing their parts.”

—Staff writer Ella A. Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@fas.harvard.edu.