All the King's horses and ...

 

APD doing Liquor Law enforcement in front of 15 Fearing Street midnight Sat

One of the scarier untold stories from last weekend, barely mentioned in official public documents, involves that hypothetical what could have gone wrong.  In other words, every parents nightmare.

 APD Call log

Amherst police had been called to 15 Fearing Street -- a usual suspect Party House managed by Eagle Crest Properties aka Jamie Cherewatti -- late Saturday night for a large crowd that had gathered and the usual noise associated with such a large gathering.

 

APD on scene 15 Fearing Street, midnight Saturday

Soon enough they called for back up ... the medical kind.

An ETOH (drunk) young female had fallen down the stairs and suffered a potentially deadly head injury.  Fortunately the call came in at a time when AFD was not completely overwhelmed with ETOH calls and she was quickly transported to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

 AFD weekend run report

Had the incident occurred just 24 hours earlier when AFD was overwhelmed with ETOH calls, she may not have been so lucky to get quick transport.

Last November UMass student Sydne Jacoby, having been out drinking with friends, fell and hit her head while walking along Fearing Street.

She died.  

Party House (s) of the Weekend

As you could probably tell from my previous report covering the alcohol soaked Friday night into Saturday morning that overwhelmed our Emergency Medical Response system, the other byproduct of free flowing alcohol-- noise/nuisance -- was also in abundant supply.

Amherst police broke up a party at #17 Salem Place Condominiums early Saturday morning (12:33 AM) arresting three UMass students for both noise and nuisance house Town By Law violations.  The second charge usually results if the party hosts are uncooperative at the front door, or there's a large number of attendees, with some of them underage.

Arrested by Amherst police: Enrico A. Aloi, Kyle A. Crist and John L. Tremblay all of them age 21 and all UMass students.

In Eastern Hampshire District Court this morning all three accepted the plea bargain whereby the criminal charges are switched to a civil charge.  Judge John Payne, Jr. only enforced the $300 noise ticket and reduced the other $300 ticket to zero, even though an Assistant District Attorney had suggested the second charge be $50.

 

1008 North Pleasant Street (note car parked on lawn)

Saturday around midnight police broke up an even larger party at 1008 North Pleasant Street very near the UMass campus and directly across the street from the natorious Hobart Lane.  Five students were arrested, although one (Arian Hashemi-Pour) claimed this morning he was not a resident of the house so the charges could have been thrown out. 

Arrested for noise:  Arian C. Hashemi-Pour, 22  and Sana Jameel, Patricia L. Martin, Nicole Scepkowski and Adriana N. Sobel all of them 21 and UMass students all.

The four actual residents of 1008 North Pleasant Street (all the females) also agreed to the plea bargain with a  $300 fine going to the town and an additional $100 court costs to settle the matter. (Plus the $40 each paid to the court clerk to be released from APD jail).

 35 Northampton Road

Police also arrested two female UMass students at 35 Northampton Road (Rt 9) for noise and nuisance house violations just after midnight Saturday into Sunday morning.  Christina Kingdara, 20,  and Allison N. Wolf, 19, both UMass students.

Again Judge Payne nixed the nuisance charge and allowed the plea bargain of $300 to the town and $100 in court costs.

Interestingly all the students arrested by APD for underage drinking and/or open container violations were fined more heavily than Party House perps.  The plea bargain cost them $300 to the town, $100 to the court plus completion of the BASICS program at UMass, which also has a $100 fee.

Lucky 13?

 

Amherst Fire Department A1 at The Pub late Friday night

The town was lucky Amherst Fire Department had four extra staff to operate two ambulances over the weekend, although I'm sure the thirteen first responders did not feel overly lucky during that bewitching hour (or two) when the gates of Hell creak open, and the all-alcohol-zombie-apocalypse is fully unleashed. 

It started routinely enough at 10:37 PM Friday with an ETOH "college aged" female at Van Meter Dorm UMass.  Then nothing until 11:15 PM, with another ETOH at Pierpont Dorm UMass -- although Dispatch later radioed to the responders she was now "conscious and alert" and the call would probably end up "a refusal."

When UMPD horse patrol told their Dispatch they were "securing their mounts" for the night (around 11:30 PM) because of the rain, I thought maybe that was a good omen -- bad weather cutting down on foot traffic. 

Wrong.

The ambulance that ended up not being needed for an ETOH female was rerouted to another nearby need of a student having a bad reaction to hallucinogenics.  Within minutes that ambulance called for a second ambulance "this location" for a second patient, also overdosing on a hallucinogenic drug.

A fire alarm from the same Van Meter Dorm at 11:53 PM then tied up Engine 1 and Engine 3 just as ETOH calls started pouring in: "A severely ETOH young male at The Pub in downtown Amherst, five minutes later an ETOH young male out on Montague Road in North Amherst, five minutes after that UMPD reports another a student had "consumed 15 shots, was breathing, but unresponsive."

 NFD ambulance, AFD Engine 3 Pierpont Dorm UMass for ETOH student 

At this point fire engines are being dispatched to medical calls to stabilize patients while waiting for an ambulance to arrive and cart them over to Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

Northampton FD and Belchertown FD both respond via mutual aid for ETOH students on the UMass campus.

Dispatch has tried to mobilize reinforcements by sending out a tone requesting the Call Force to report in for "station coverage".

213 Sunset Avenue 12:40 AM

At 12:35 AM a beleaguered ambulance responds to  213 Sunset Avenue, where a large party is taking place, for an ETOH female.

A5 responds directly to the scene after dropping off an ETOH patient at the hospital without the usual "return to quarters" to restock supplies or clean up the ambulance, or do the paperwork associated with the previous call.

 AFD Engine 3 Mass Ave  1:00 AM near Southwest heading to ETOH patient

At 1:00 AM UMPD requests an ambulance for an ETOH student at the bus stop on the corner of Sunset and Mass Avenue.  Engine 3  arrives to render assistance until an ambulance can respond.
The final substance abuse run occurs at 4:23 AM.

And thus ends just another binge "night" in the little college town of Amherst.

Thirteen AFD full-time professional emergency responders, 5 ambulances and 3 fire engines and we still required 2 ambulances from our friends in Northampton and one from Belchertown.

It's all fun and games until desperately waiting -- waiting -- for an ambulance to arrive ... someone dies.

   AFD Oct ETOH Wknd

To be continued ...

AFD On Display

 AFD Central heart of downtown Amherst

After the deluge of emergency responses last night into early this morning today's Open House at AFD Central must have seemed like the calm after the storm.

Although I'm sure the coffee and cider donuts came in handy.

Smokey Bear and Jada the Jr. Firefighter

Smokey Bear and Kira

In spite of sequestration, a Federal Government shut down and state budget cuts, Smokey Bear managed to make the event, and throughout the morning maintained a happy face.  Considering he was a magnet for children -- mine included -- probably not too hard a feat.

Firefighter 75' over town center courtesy of the quint

Unlike climbing to the top of the quint, Engine 2.  Although Smoky Bear did keep both feet firmly on the ground.   Probably an insurance thing.

911 Dispatch (& the 729): Unsung heroes

A little history:

Human drawn pumper circa 1850s

 

The infamous Amherst College Alumni Gym fire 1985

And a scary future:

A Tree Grows ...

 

Tree Warden Alan Snow preparing to plant

Actually more like ten trees will be growing soon all along Blue Hills Road, as about a dozen neighbors, tree warden Alan Snow and Town Manager John Musante showed up this morning for a good old fashioned tree planting.  

 Princeton Elm (resistant to Dutch Elm disease) will grace the Schmidt family  front yard

Coordinated by Amherst Shade Tree Committee member Nancy Higgins, the neighborhood won out in a contest with two other streets for the planting services.  Last year Town Meeting approved spending $612,000 to purchase 2,000 trees for municipal tree canopy enhancement.

Somewhere in the distance, the Lorax smiled.

 

Town Manager John Musante center Nancy Higgins Tree Committee rtght

Ace!

Middle School Tennis Courts

The $225,000 Amherst Regional Middle School tennis courts rehab project that started early this summer is now complete.  

 

 

Town/Schools Director of Facilities Ron Bohonowicz reports the courts have already been used by intramural tennis teams and he describes the end result of the project as "beautiful."

Housing By The Slice?

 Echo Village "Apartments", Gatehouse Road, Amherst

Obviously the profit margin on a pizza sold by the slice is a lot higher than pies sold in bulkier units measured as small, medium, or large ... but, can the same be said for rental housing?

Keep an eye on controversial Echo Village "Apartments" in East Amherst, and we will soon find out ... providing of course the Building Commissioner doesn't put the kibosh on it as a zoning violation, since selling by the bedroom kind of turns the building into a "rooming house," and currently that location is not so zoned.

At $575 per bedroom with a total of 62 bedrooms in the complex (at least officially anyway) monthly receipts would total $35,650.  And even with the mortgage payment on the $3,000,000 acquisition price, a tidy profit to be made. 

And that is of course a pernicious problem if you are on the wrong end of the supply/demand equation.  With high demand and limited supply the price of housing skyrockets, pricing out of the market low-income residents, single-parent households, veterans, and basic service industry workers trying to survive on minimum wage jobs.

Yesterday the Amherst Housing Authority shelved a controversial vote on reducing the value of individual Section 8 housing vouchers because -- according to state law -- they cannot do so without first holding a public hearing within 45 days of taking such drastic action.

Out of the 11 families who formerly called Echo Village home (with the aid of vouchers overseen by the AHA) only 3 families still remain. 

The Town Manager commissioned an infrastructure study of Echo Village Apartments as a prelude to taking it by eminent domain, a drastic solution that will never make it through Town Meeting, where it would require a two-thirds vote.

But the town should at least maintain a level playing field for all landlords/rental property owners by enforcing the zoning, even if  especially if it cuts into Mr. Cherewatti's profits.

UPDATE (4:00 PM) 

I'm now told this selling practice is probably legal as it is "common practice all over town."  But then, cramming too many students into basement rooms with inadequate fire/carbon monoxide detection systems and no second means of egress also used to be common practice all over town.