Debate over parties off campus rages on

After the most recent rash of student festivities in the neighborhoods surrounding East Campus two weeks ago, tensions are at a familiar high.

Christina Headrick hates when her neighborhood looks “trashy.”

A resident of the Trinity Park area near East Campus, Headrick has spent many Sunday mornings walking down streets and past yards strewn with trash—remnants of Duke students’ weekend partying. What happens in the middle of the night, Headrick said, is even more “inappropriate.”

“We have difficulty driving down Watts Street because there are literally hundreds of undergraduates looking for parties, which is hilarious because our neighborhood is not a nightclub district,” Headrick explained. “I’m friends with people who tell me about people vomiting on cars... or guys with it whipped out in the front yard peeing on the grass.”

Other drunk students have cursed at her friends and hurled beer cans at the neighborhood’s elementary school, she added.

Because Duke students are required to live on campus for three years, it is mostly seniors who live in the Trinity Park houses. But students of all years spill over the stone wall that surrounds East Campus to party every weekend. Clad in Polo shirts and khakis, stilettos and mini skirts, they head into the local neighborhoods for off-campus parties where the booze flows and music pounds—and there are no University regulations.

After the most recent rash of student festivities two weekends ago, tensions are at a familiar high. Fed-up with the situation, neighbors want clear consequences for debauchery and enforcement of zoning laws that are supposed to limit the number of people living in each house. Students want an understanding with their neighbors that will allow them to continue to socialize.

 

“If there’s a huge party and trash in the yards, that’s a legitimate complaint,” Breaux said, but he recalled being at a house last year when four police cars arrived to break up a party of only 12 students.

Junior Billy Fennebresque, a member of the off-campus fraternity Delta Phi Alpha—formerly Sigma Alpha Epsilon until it disaffiliated from the University in Spring 2002—said neighbors and police also seem set on disbanding any gathering at 203 Watts St., where several of his fraternity brothers live.

“We’ve had fraternity meetings at 8 o’clock at night with just brothers, no girls, no alcohol... and the police will come and say, ‘What are you guys doing?’ because they’ve been called for a noise ordinance,” Fennebresque said.

The police said most of the calls they respond to are legitimate noise complaints. “In the vast majority of these cases, neighbors are getting woken up in the middle of the night, and the noise is excessive,” Sarvis said.

Fennebresque and junior Ryan Turner—another Delta Phi Alpha member—also accused the neighbors of preventing them from hiring off-duty officers to patrol parties. Fennebresque said the officers are hired to help keep events under control and create a safe environment for the students who leave campus to party. Neighbors are suspicious that on-duty police are less likely to break up officer-patrolled parties.

Headrick, however, said neighbors are not trying to stop students from hiring security, but they want laws fully enforced at all times.

DPD Public Information Officer Kammie Michael said the police have stopped hiring out extra security for parties. Sarvis said the policy changed because it presented “a conflict of interest.”

 

Legal trouble

Headrick emphasized that while Trinity Park is meant to be a predominately “single-family residential area,” the neighbors do not want to stop all parties or eradicate the student population. All they ask, she said, is for reasonableness.

“No one is saying all students are like this or we don’t want students to live here,” Headrick said. “But we don’t want people operating bars in our neighborhood.”

Josh Parker, who lives on Gregson Street, said residents expect alcohol and noise issues to crop up in an urban area, but he noted that there should be consequences for anyone who violates the law and disrupts the neighborhood.

“I don’t think we should be targeting students,” he said. “I would be saying the same thing to my neighbor, a married couple.”

Members of Eta Prime and Delta Phi Alpha said neighbors and Duke administrators should not just be targeting off-campus fraternities as the crux of the partying problem. Members of on-campus fraternities like Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Nu and sports teams like lacrosse and track also choose to live in groups off campus and throw parties.

Members of several on-campus fraternities either did not respond to requests for interviews or refused to be quoted. Members of the track team who live off campus said they have strong relationships with their neighbors.

Headrick said fraternities that “set up shop” in the neighborhood are the focus of most complaints. She said neighbors suspect many fraternity members are violating city regulations and living in larger groups than zoning laws permit.

Turner said 203 Watts St. is leased to individual students, not to Delta Phi Alpha, and the students who reside there “live in accordance with the law.” Similarly, Breaux said the residence where Eta Prime members live is “the house we sometimes gather at,” not a fraternity house.

Breaux added, however, that zoning laws that limit occupancy are “outdated”—a sentiment shared by many students.

In its simplest form, the law states that no more than three unrelated persons may live in a single family home together.

The houses in Trinity Park have high property values because of their size and location, and dividing rent among only three residents in houses with four or more bedrooms can be financially difficult. Many students still choose to live in the neighborhood, however, because it is safe and close to the University. Students have reported that in order to live in the area, some of their peers elect to live in larger groups to cut down on individual costs, placing themselves in a precarious legal position.

Headrick said it is difficult to prove whether or not students are violating the occupancy regulations because the “city is reluctant to do all of the work to investigate” the issue, but the neighborhood has not ruled out proceeding with litigation if it would alleviate the number of problem-causing houses.

 

University responsibility

Neighbors have also criticized the University for not suitably punishing students who misbehave off campus. Parker said right now there are “just a lot of folks at Duke in the administration saying they can’t do anything about it.”

According to the Undergraduate Bulletin of Information and Regulations, Duke’s jurisdiction extends off campus when students’ actions pose a direct or indirect threat to the University community. Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said the policy is “fairly and deliberately open-ended.” He also said he regularly has conversations with students who have been cited for noise or alcohol violations off campus.

Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs Stephen Bryan said whether or not the University takes disciplinary action against a student for off-campus behavior “depends on the situation,” but the administration treats students who live off campus in the same manner it treats students living in the dorms.

Noting that Duke lacks the resources to take on the number of cases that would result from a zero tolerance stance regarding off-campus partying, Bryan pointed out that the question of where to end a university’s jurisdiction does not have an easy solution.

“If you’re going to extend it to a mile off campus, why shouldn’t you extend it to Myrtle Beach during beach week and the violations I’m sure go on there?” he said.

Moneta also pointed out that because students are adults, they should be able to regulate their own behavior in a community setting.

“If we truly respect that part of coming to college is to... prepare for adulthood, at some point as you move into the senior year, you’re going to have to get experience living among others—among non-students—and learn what’s appropriate in neighborhood relations,” he said.by Seyward Darby

The chronicle

Christina Headrick hates when her neighborhood looks “trashy.”

A resident of the Trinity Park area near East Campus, Headrick has spent many Sunday mornings walking down streets and past yards strewn with trash—remnants of Duke students’ weekend partying. What happens in the middle of the night, Headrick said, is even more “inappropriate.”

“We have difficulty driving down Watts Street because there are literally hundreds of undergraduates looking for parties, which is hilarious because our neighborhood is not a nightclub district,” Headrick explained. “I’m friends with people who tell me about people vomiting on cars... or guys with it whipped out in the front yard peeing on the grass.”

Other drunk students have cursed at her friends and hurled beer cans at the neighborhood’s elementary school, she added.

Because Duke students are required to live on campus for three years, it is mostly seniors who live in the Trinity Park houses. But students of all years spill over the stone wall that surrounds East Campus to party every weekend. Clad in Polo shirts and khakis, stilettos and mini skirts, they head into the local neighborhoods for off-campus parties where the booze flows and music pounds—and there are no University regulations.

After the most recent rash of student festivities two weekends ago, tensions are at a familiar high. Fed-up with the situation, neighbors want clear consequences for debauchery and enforcement of zoning laws that are supposed to limit the number of people living in each house. Students want an understanding with their neighbors that will allow them to continue to socialize.

 

Compounding complaints

For as long as students have been partying off campus, neighbors like Headrick have been complaining. Sgt. Ed Sarvis of the Durham Police Department said officers respond to an average of two to three noise complaints every weekend. He added that there are several “party houses” in the area that the police expect to get complaints about. According to DPD records, the police received 229 loud music/party or alcohol violation calls at 16 residences in the Trinity Park and Trinity Heights area between Jan. 1, 2001 and Jan. 25, 2005.

One of the residences, 508 N. Buchanan St., was the site of a party Jan. 22 that received national publicity after police found students wrestling in baby oil. Currently home to several members of the off-campus fraternity Eta Prime—which was known as Kappa Sigma until it left campus in Fall 2002—the residence has been the subject of 38 loud music/party calls in the past four years.

Junior Kevin Breaux, president of Eta Prime, said a party “of that magnitude will not be happening again” because “there is no desire to cause that much attention.” He noted that huge student parties are isolated incidents and smaller gatherings are more the norm. But neighborhood residents and police, Breaux said, seem determined to break up parties of all sizes.

“If there’s a huge party and trash in the yards, that’s a legitimate complaint,” Breaux said, but he recalled being at a house last year when four police cars arrived to break up a party of only 12 students.

Junior Billy Fennebresque, a member of the off-campus fraternity Delta Phi Alpha—formerly Sigma Alpha Epsilon until it disaffiliated from the University in Spring 2002—said neighbors and police also seem set on disbanding any gathering at 203 Watts St., where several of his fraternity brothers live.

“We’ve had fraternity meetings at 8 o’clock at night with just brothers, no girls, no alcohol... and the police will come and say, ‘What are you guys doing?’ because they’ve been called for a noise ordinance,” Fennebresque said.

The police said most of the calls they respond to are legitimate noise complaints. “In the vast majority of these cases, neighbors are getting woken up in the middle of the night, and the noise is excessive,” Sarvis said.

Fennebresque and junior Ryan Turner—another Delta Phi Alpha member—also accused the neighbors of preventing them from hiring off-duty officers to patrol parties. Fennebresque said the officers are hired to help keep events under control and create a safe environment for the students who leave campus to party. Neighbors are suspicious that on-duty police are less likely to break up officer-patrolled parties.

Headrick, however, said neighbors are not trying to stop students from hiring security, but they want laws fully enforced at all times.

DPD Public Information Officer Kammie Michael said the police have stopped hiring out extra security for parties. Sarvis said the policy changed because it presented “a conflict of interest.”

 

Legal trouble

Headrick emphasized that while Trinity Park is meant to be a predominately “single-family residential area,” the neighbors do not want to stop all parties or eradicate the student population. All they ask, she said, is for reasonableness.

“No one is saying all students are like this or we don’t want students to live here,” Headrick said. “But we don’t want people operating bars in our neighborhood.”

Josh Parker, who lives on Gregson Street, said residents expect alcohol and noise issues to crop up in an urban area, but he noted that there should be consequences for anyone who violates the law and disrupts the neighborhood.

“I don’t think we should be targeting students,” he said. “I would be saying the same thing to my neighbor, a married couple.”

Members of Eta Prime and Delta Phi Alpha said neighbors and Duke administrators should not just be targeting off-campus fraternities as the crux of the partying problem. Members of on-campus fraternities like Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Nu and sports teams like lacrosse and track also choose to live in groups off campus and throw parties.

Members of several on-campus fraternities either did not respond to requests for interviews or refused to be quoted. Members of the track team who live off campus said they have strong relationships with their neighbors.

Headrick said fraternities that “set up shop” in the neighborhood are the focus of most complaints. She said neighbors suspect many fraternity members are violating city regulations and living in larger groups than zoning laws permit.

Turner said 203 Watts St. is leased to individual students, not to Delta Phi Alpha, and the students who reside there “live in accordance with the law.” Similarly, Breaux said the residence where Eta Prime members live is “the house we sometimes gather at,” not a fraternity house.

Breaux added, however, that zoning laws that limit occupancy are “outdated”—a sentiment shared by many students.

In its simplest form, the law states that no more than three unrelated persons may live in a single family home together.

The houses in Trinity Park have high property values because of their size and location, and dividing rent among only three residents in houses with four or more bedrooms can be financially difficult. Many students still choose to live in the neighborhood, however, because it is safe and close to the University. Students have reported that in order to live in the area, some of their peers elect to live in larger groups to cut down on individual costs, placing themselves in a precarious legal position.

Headrick said it is difficult to prove whether or not students are violating the occupancy regulations because the “city is reluctant to do all of the work to investigate” the issue, but the neighborhood has not ruled out proceeding with litigation if it would alleviate the number of problem-causing houses.

 

University responsibility

Neighbors have also criticized the University for not suitably punishing students who misbehave off campus. Parker said right now there are “just a lot of folks at Duke in the administration saying they can’t do anything about it.”

According to the Undergraduate Bulletin of Information and Regulations, Duke’s jurisdiction extends off campus when students’ actions pose a direct or indirect threat to the University community. Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said the policy is “fairly and deliberately open-ended.” He also said he regularly has conversations with students who have been cited for noise or alcohol violations off campus.

Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs Stephen Bryan said whether or not the University takes disciplinary action against a student for off-campus behavior “depends on the situation,” but the administration treats students who live off campus in the same manner it treats students living in the dorms.

Noting that Duke lacks the resources to take on the number of cases that would result from a zero tolerance stance regarding off-campus partying, Bryan pointed out that the question of where to end a university’s jurisdiction does not have an easy solution.

“If you’re going to extend it to a mile off campus, why shouldn’t you extend it to Myrtle Beach during beach week and the violations I’m sure go on there?” he said.

Moneta also pointed out that because students are adults, they should be able to regulate their own behavior in a community setting.

“If we truly respect that part of coming to college is to... prepare for adulthood, at some point as you move into the senior year, you’re going to have to get experience living among others—among non-students—and learn what’s appropriate in neighborhood relations,” he said.