Area residents worried about noise from parties

With students claiming that the administration's crackdown on alcohol consumption will only push drinking off campus, many area residents say that the action was warranted, even if it proves to be an inconvenience to them. Community members, who worry that living near a college may become even noisier than usual, say their major concern is the presence of additional off-campus parties. "It seems that [the policy is] probably a good step in general, but I don't know exactly how much follow-up there is on what's going on off-campus," said Tim Wood, president of the University City Historical Society and a School of Arts and Sciences graduate student. Wood, of the 4500 block of Larchwood Avenue, said that the policy may be effective "if Penn is prepared to follow up on complaints from neighbors on noisy parties? but I'm not convinced that that's something they're going to do." Like students, Wood said he wished Penn had consulted with those the policy affects. But while he said he wished there was "a little bit more warning that someone was thinking about these changes and [that] it might have an impact off campus," he recognized that Penn's primary responsibility is toward its students. Other area residents applauded Penn's effort to crack down on alcohol abuse, despite any inconveniences that may arise toward the surrounding neighborhood. Janet Givens, the School of Engineering and Applied Science's associate director of development and alumni relations and a resident of the 3600 block of Hamilton Avenue, said binge drinking is a huge problem at Penn and a response such as this was necessary, despite the possible inconvenience to area residents. "I'm not as terribly concerned as the rest of the community that parties are going to get worse, noisier, louder -- we deal with those problems as they come up," she said. "My main point? is that I would really love to understand why students that are very intelligent, obviously, choose to drink themselves into oblivion and think its fun." University City District Executive Director Paul Steinke said he hopes the new alcohol policy will facilitate a discussion about alcohol's place at the University. "The UCD welcomes constructive dialogue about how to improve this community's quality of life and if the temporary ban encourages this dialogue, then in the long run we all benefit," Steinke said. He added that by making alcohol abuse an issue, the new policy has succeeded in "heightening the downside of alcohol consumption." Barry Grossbach, a member of the Spruce Hill Community Association, also pointed out the positive message of the new policy and said he did not think the University's actions should negatively affect the surrounding community. "I think it's really important to point out that what the University is trying to do is protect students from killing themselves," Grossbach said. "I don't think it affects the community one way or another." "The University is acting after a particularly horrendous event, so maybe there wasn't a full consultation, but they have to work that out with the entities at the University."

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