In many ways, the years of keg stands, king's cup and beer pong have led to this. After enough complaints from the College Area Community Council, with support from Councilman Jim Madaffer, Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Mike Aguirre, $1,000 administrative citations can be given to the hosts of loud parties and their landowners in Mid-City neighborhoods, including the College Area.
The six-month pilot program, which began on Monday, has ties to mini-dorm issues. The theory is that as more mini-dorms are built next to senior citizen- and family-owned units, problems of noise and parties are more prevalent. Encroachment, non-student neighbors say, is a big reason that they're frustrated.
Meanwhile, proposed land development code changes aim to stop mini-dorm conversions. Last month's announcement of two mini-dorm builders' agreement to discontinue projects was seen as a victory by the CACC.
However, the six-month program should be considered a short-sighted, easy solution - and certainly not the best way to fix the problem.
The CACC and city officials took it upon themselves to act as parents when they rallied behind the citations. They are presumptuous in doing so.
They shouldn't unjustly punish a student body that's smarter and graduates more often than ones before it. They shouldn't decide on a ridiculously expensive fine for students who pay about two-thirds of that amount for in-state tuition. They shouldn't give photographs of student tenants in CAPP'd houses to police officers to see on their screens in patrol cars - essentially ingraining a "partiers first, students second" attitude in officers' minds.
They should've tried another program, one that makes it mandatory for neighbors to introduce themselves to people new to the neighborhood - something that's rarely happening - and exchange phone numbers in case of an emergency (which, for some, would be a birthday party lasting past 10 p.m.).
Yes, complaints of parties have increased in the past five years. But there is a strong belief that San Diego State was more of a party school in the past, especially the late 1980s, when there were just as many students and a significant housing shortage for them.
Even before Monday, SDSU students were being eyed with more scrutiny - and behaving just as bad (or good) as previous generations. Yet there were programs in place that have been gradually effective.
The Good Neighbor and the Community Assisted Party programs have helped students be aware of the consequences of hosting parties. And following a California State University chancellor executive order, SDSU revised its student conduct code last year to hold students accountable for offenses such as underage drinking and public intoxication in a three-mile zone surrounding campus.
Perhaps the most telling examples of the non-student community's mistakes on this issue are the signs on some front lawns: On the upper half, it reads "GET OUT!" On the lower half, "Mini-Dorms."
If they're not intended to say that mini-dorms should literally leave, then they must refer to the hope that they be converted back to their original layouts - an unrealistic wish (logistically and logically) that Madaffer wants, too.
If the signs mean that SDSU students should get out of the neighborhood, then that's not going to happen. The proposed Master Plan includes an increase of 10,000 full-time equivalent students during the next 20 years.
Even if the citations become permanent and the CACC succeeds when the pilot program concludes, if there were no more parties and no evidence of a college community other than the campus, there couldn't be a celebration.
That might make too much noise.
State of Mind - the voice of The Daily Aztec
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