Out of luck: students call off St. Patrick’s Day party
The annual St. Patrick's Day "darty" (day-party) was cancelled by students living in houses where it is typically held. The cancellation occurred following pressure from city officials and the passage of a city council resolution addressing noise disturbances in St. Joseph.
Students who hoped to attend the holiday “darty” last weekend found themselves out of four-leaf-clover luck this St. Patrick’s Day.
The annual party, which typically takes place in and around the lawns of houses in St. Joseph occupied by CSB+SJU students, was canceled by the prospective hosts due to mounting pressures from both administration and the city of St. Joseph. In the “Annual March Message to Students” sent by the deans of students of both campuses last week, students were urged to read the resolution passed by the St. Joseph City Council on March 6, which outlines the new proactive approach the city plans to take in addressing large public gatherings that result in disturbances or violations of city policy.
The message directly mentions events like St. Patrick’s Day and Case Day as examples of gatherings that may lead to situations the city takes issue with under the new resolution. The deans encouraged students to become familiar with the resolution and other policies at CSB+SJU like the “Good Neighbor Policy” that relate to the institutions’ relationship with St. Joseph.
“We expect CSB and SJU students to make safe and responsible decisions on and off campus and comply with all CSB and SJU policies and local ordinances and laws,” SJU Dean of Students Michael Connolly said via email.
SJU senior Josh Nelson lives on the strip, the student nickname for the series of houses that the party occurs at, and was involved in helping plan and eventually cancel the darty. He said he and the others on the strip were in close contact with both the police and Connolly throughout last week, trying to work to follow the new city resolution and still be able to have the darty.
“Our landlord was talking to the police, too…they told him they were impressed with how seriously we were taking it, Connolly said he was impressed with how seriously we were taking it and we were trying to take it seriously because we wanted it to happen,” he said.
Nelson mentioned the precautions that they planned to take at the darty to cover the specific issues the resolution mentions, like public urination and excess littering. This included getting portable toilets and large trash cans as well as having himself and others man the doors to carefully watch people going in and out of the party. However, he said that despite trying to check those boxes, they still got the impression that it wasn’t enough.
“We talked to so many people and tried to assure them that we were doing everything and hitting all these points that they were worried about, but they still weren’t really giving us a chance,” he said. “I think we took it very seriously, but they still didn’t really have faith in us.”
One part of the new resolution removes the ceiling on how much the city can fine renters and landlords if a gathering like the darty violates the city policy. The previous maximum fine was $2,500 and can now be raised to account for the resources the city has to divert in order to keep situations under control, like calling in additional police officers. Nelson and the residents on the strip were made explicitly aware of this change and other policy details as the resolution was laid out for them, and he said due to the potential consequences and outside pressure, they ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it to try and continue with hosting the darty.
“I think it is important to state that [the police and administration] didn’t tell us that we had to cancel it. We made that decision on our own,” he said. “Whether or not that was persuaded by everything they told us is a different story.”
St. Joseph Chief of Police Dwight Pfannenstein said the police department chose to begin communicating with the residents on the strip because of the complaints they received after last year’s St. Patrick’s darty.
“Last year we caught a lot of heat over how big the party had grown to be,” he said. “This year while preparations were in effect…people started calling the police department stating, ‘this is starting to get to be a pretty big size, the intentions are there again.’”
Pfannenstein said the goal is to make city policy and potential ramifications very clear before things are planned in the first place so that no one is blindsided.
“Instead of telling students, ‘Well, try and be on your best behavior that day and we’ll just see what happens,’ and rather than waiting until it gets to be so big that a person can’t manage it, we’re just taking the proactive approach,” he said.
Amidst the feelings of disappointment or frustration circling this issue from the student perspective, Pfannenstein said that his hope is to continue to work with students and keep goodwill with the community as they navigate the changes in the city resolution. He encouraged those who have questions about bigger events to call and talk to the police department ahead of time, so they can help students get better guidance on what the city and CSB+SJU plans to do with this policy going forward.
“We’re all about students enjoying spring and coming out and enjoying themselves, and we want them to do it in a safe and responsible manner,” he said. “We want everyone to have a great college experience and also be safe.”
