Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Party house of the $emester
UPDATE: Monday 4/18, Patriots Day
So these bad boys have been good as of late. But better weather brings on the "Mean Season" for partying, thus time will tell (only about a month)
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Clearly the recent fine increase to $300 for the first offense for violating the town's noise or nuisance house bylaw (the maximum allowed by state law) has had a major impact. Hit them in the wallet and you get their undivided attention.
The vast majority of addresses ticketed in September and October learned their lesson and reigned in their rowdiness these past two months.
But naturally, there will always be "outliers". In this case we have 83 Morgan Circle, an address that garnered noise violations on four separate occasions, starting on September 18 with three and culminating on November 7 with two. And just to demonstrate the height of irresponsibility, three on October 1 and three more on October 2. Now that was an expensive weekend!
Their grand total for the semester: 11 tickets or $3,300 total.
Overall grand total for all locations: 176 tickets or $52,800 total.
Too bad APD could not set this up as an Enterprise Fund so that fines stay in the police budget since this four month amount alone could fund the addition of one more officer to our current strength, which is down 10 officers from ten years ago.
The raw statistics tell the story:
September: 21 Nuisance House, 44 Unlawful Noise or a total of 65
October: 13 Nuisance House, 53 Unlawful Noise or a total of 66
And here's where things get interesting:
November: 7 Nuisance House, 28 Unlawful Noise or a total of 35
December: 0 Nuisance House, 10 Unlawful Noise or a total of 10
Sure some of that is simply due to weather--a cops best friend. But certainly, the expensive tickets played a major role in bringing about such a dramatic decrease over the last two months.
A positive step in the march towards civility.
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12 comments:
Finally Amherst figured out that the group hug and slaps on the wrists don't work. I agree with you Larry hit everyone (not students alone) and then the violators will be more focused on their behavior. Theres nothing wrong with a good party just keep it in control.
Agreed. And of course the interesting thing is the attack fox who has complained the loudest about student party behavior this past week or so--NIMBY John Fox--voted AGAINST the bylaw fine increase at Town Meeting last year.
Go figure...
Larry,
You might do a service to all of us if you named the landlords of the houses where these violations take place.
Are the fines being paid? It's one thing to levy them and another to collect on them.
I was wondering that too. Are they paying them, and is there another fine for not paying the fine....
The fine increase only went into effect in September and it takes three or four months for the "system" (courts) to work.
We will know soon enough. And if they are not paying them, maybe we could work out a deal with our more powerful friends at Umass so if they don't pay them--like with parking fines--they can't get their diploma.
Anybody can search the spiffy new town website for landlord names. Just click Government (top of the page), then down to Departments then to the Assessors page (under Finance) and click the "online database" over on the left. Then punch in the address.
The property card gives you current assessed value and current owners and what they paid for it.
In this case: KOTIKIAN, R STEPAN & GHARBEGIAN, STEPHAN
I find it pretty sad that you have devoted a good portion of your hardly readable blog to being such a kill joy. If you haven't realized UMass Amherst is one of the top party schools in the country. Its like you just moved to the area and are shocked by all these crazy kids having a good time. Its also really creepy that you harbor such strong feelings about it and detail every bit of information (most of it wrong by the way). I'm sorry you were never one of the cool kids at whatever shitty community college you attended and are now taking it out on today's youth. Maybe you should grow up, let these kids have the fun you never had or will have. Or focus your energies to something more useful like a going to Home Depot and investing in a strong rope.
Actually my turnround on this popular Monday morning (which only comes but once per week) feature is pretty quick and easy.
I go to a press briefing at APD every Monday at 8:45 AM to review weekend police logs and the winner of 'Party House of the Weekend' usually jumps off the page.
If it's nice out I bike to, otherwise drive by the address for a quick photoshoot while staying on public property of course.
Article is usually published before 11:00 AM, and about an hour later the Gazette usually covers the same incident, naming names and ages.
umm.......Lary......You posted that article at 7am on a Wednesday morning. Do you have anything better to do with your time? Like jump in front of cars on a busy street or something?
How sagacious of you. Do you remember that so vividly for any particular reason?
Yes the "Party House of the $emester" was a new, special edition so to speak, but obviously an outgrowth of my "Party House of the Weekend" Monday morning series.
I actually did spend a tad more time on it because I had to analyze six months worth of data from APD; but, once again, 83 Morgan Circle jumped off the data sheet.
And if these bad boys don't behave themselves over the next month or so I will create another category just for them: "Party House of the Year."
I've been harassed and threatened (not to call the police) by neighbors in student rental houses in the past. But luckily they never hurt me or my family.
UMass Amherst students are now threatening the life of someone for posting news on a blog. Why are these children not expelled - or arrested? Get their IP address from blogger.com and report this to UMass immediately.
Correction: I should have said 'aggressively intimidated' me into not calling the police about their antics.
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