2002: Rowdy college students rile neighbors - 9/16/2002
Rowdy college students rile neighbors
Monday, September 16, 2002
By PATRICK JOHNSON
Barbara H. Partee lives on Hobart Lane in Amherst, a little street with a big
reputation for wild college parties.
That little irony, Partee says, is frequently pointed out to her by cashiers
whenever she has to show identification.
Partee, who has lived on Hobart Lane for more years — 24 — than most of
her student neighbors have been alive, says life on the little dead-end street
is not exactly all fun and games.
"I don't like it when people are urinating on my lawn," she said.
Martha S. Tucker has lived on Mortimer Street in Springfield, one block away
from Springfield College, for 14 years.
Sometimes, the students living in the nearby college housing make good
neighbors, Tucker says.
At other times, there will be cups and bottles on the lawns, whooping and
hollering in the dead of the night, or, as happened twice in 1995, she'll find
young people having sex in the shadows by her garage. "Every year, they get a new group in, and you never know what will happen until you
get into the school year."
Last year, the students were wonderful, Tucker said, but the jury is still out
on this year. "If you get a bad group, you get noise, drinking and crowds."
A recent report by the Harvard School of Public Health concludes pretty much the
same thing — neighbors of college campuses are likely to suffer some
spill-off effect from student drinking.
According to the survey of 2,300 households nationally, residents within a mile
of a college campus are more likely to have a lower quality of life than people
living farther away.
Heavy drinking among college students has been a growing concern on campuses,
but the Harvard survey sought to measure for the first time the impact of the
drink-until-you-drop crowd on their sober neighbors.
People who live near a college are 135 percent more likely to suffer from the
second-hand effects — vandalism, assault, noise and litter — of student
drinking, according to the report.
Amherst Police Chief Charles L. Scherpa said the report's findings were not
exactly new to him.
"For the 30 years that I've lived here, nothing's changed. Kids drink, and they
raise hell," he said. "It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out."
Partee agrees. In her years on Hobart Lane, she's seen light posts torn up,
fence posts pulled out and her property value go down.
She tried to sell her house, an 1890 Victorian farmhouse, five years ago,
listing the property at $220,000.
She did not receive a single offer. She lowered the price, lowered it again and
again to $200,000.
By the time she took it off the market, Partee had not received a single offer.
She has since decided not to sell. "You mention Hobart Lane, and everyone
remembers the big bash," she said.
That would be the end-of-the-school-year party that has come to be known as the
Hobart Hoedown. The party has become a tradition despite efforts by the town to
stop it.
Last May, some 2,000 people, most of whom were students, packed Hobart Lane. When things got out of
hand, police responded with riot gear, and 55 people were arrested.
Partee was out of town that day and missed the party, but she has been around
for others.
There are each year dozens of mini-hoedowns of up to 100 revelers that crop up
most weekends each fall and spring.When they do, Partee or her neighbor, the
only other town resident on a street dominated by student apartments, usually
have to call the police.
Brian C. Pescatore, 20, an environmental science major from Beverly and a
resident of Hobart Lane since the start of the semester, said he thinks the
street's reputation is exaggerated by the local press.
"You can go anywhere on campus and find a party," he said one day while walking
to class.
The press "always says there were riots and da-da-da," Pescatore said. "What it
was was a big group of kids celebrating the end of the year."
Campus and community officials said students are always going to let loose with alcohol, and it is doubtful if anyone can really prevent it.
But communities and campuses can minimize any harm or disruption to neighbors by
working together, officials said.
For the last five years, Amherst, area landlords and the three campuses, UMass,
Amherst and Hampshire colleges, have been working together as the Amherst
Problem-Solving Partnership.
"Everyone recognizes the value of getting together and working on issues," said
Martha Nelson, the UMass community relations director.
"The boundaries between off campus and on campus are pretty blurry in terms of
people's lives," she said. "We all have an investment in good quality of life
here."
The committee has helped open lines of communication among the town, colleges
and landlords that did not exist before.
Amherst police are now invited to campus safety meetings, and campus and town
police regularly share information on upcoming events, she said.
Also, landlords can now request information on disciplinary history of would-be student tenants from the UMass dean of students.
In spite of it all, Nelson said, sometimes Hobart happens.
Amherst Select Board member Eva Schiffer, also a member of the problem-solving
committee, agreed that the committee has produced positive results.
But at the same time, she said, the committee was caught off guard along with
everyone else by the sheer magnitude of this year's hoedown.
In the years since the partnership formed, the annual hoedown was greatly
diminished. Some years it did not happen at all, Schiffer said. "It was
disappointing to have it come back in full force."
She and Nelson said its re-mergence is forcing the committee to re-examine its
goals and objectives.
Schiffer, a 40-year resident of Kendrick Place, knows all too well that students
can be loud. Her house is within earshot of Amherst College dormitories. "I've
already made a call to the Amherst college police and the semester is only just
beginning," she said.
Scherpa said that in recent years, communication between the town and the colleges has improved, but that has had little
impact on student behavior. "They still drink and they still raise hell," the
police chief said.
In fact, he said, the college weekend used to begin on Thursday night but in
recent years it has started as soon as Wednesday.
He was reluctant to characterizing it as a UMass problem.
UMass is the biggest school and its students contribute their share of
trouble-making, he said. But Amherst and Hampshire college students are also
right there with them.
"We also get a percentage from other schools, from Boston or Springfield," who
are drawn to Amherst by its reputation as a party town, he said.
Westfield City Councilor Barbara S. Swords, whose ward abuts Westfield State
College, said she rarely hears complaints from residents about student parties.
Most of the complaints about the college that come her way involve the amount of
traffic coming to and from the college along Western Avenue.
Tucker said Springfield College has seemed more responsive to the neighbors in the last couple of years.
The new administration seems more willing to listen, she said. Neighbors have
also joined together to voice complaints.
"We got a little more action (collectively) than they would have acting on
individual complaints," Tucker said.
Springfield College spokeswoman Claire Burns said since the college is
surrounded by residential neighborhoods, "being a good neighbor is a high
priority here."
The college has a code of conduct that applies to students living in college
housing on the outskirts of campus, and it is enforced she said.
"We firmly state the behavioral expectations with students living in college
housing."
College officials attend neighborhood groups meetings, and frequent meet
informally with individual neighbors to hear their concerns, according to Burns.
"We encourage neighbors to contact the dean of students or the director of
community relations if they have any complaints," she said.
Since the college has adopted a hard-line approach regarding student disturbances, the number of
problems, as well as the number of complaints, has dropped.
Partee said that aside from the noise, litter and inconvenience, the Hobart
hooliganism is not totally unbearable.
The vandalism, bonfires and any other damage are usually confined to the
apartment complexes and don't involve the neighboring property, she said.
She said that perhaps it is sign of positive change that the day after the
hoedown, students were out in the road picking up the thousands of cups and
empty bottles and cans.
"One of the kids said if they didn't clean it up, their landlord would eject
them," Partee said. Patrick Johnson may be reached at pjohnson@union-news.com
© 2002 UNION-NEWS. Used with permission.
