While the neighborhoods near Hathway Street remained quiet in the early hours of March 14, the City of San Luis Obispo spent nearly $136,000 on police enforcement for St. Fratty’s festivities, an increase from last year, according to Christine Wallace, the Public Affairs Manager for the San Luis Obispo Police Department.
That number is more than $13,000 more than the department spent on law enforcement last year.The majority of the spending covered overtime and other non-staffing costs such as equipment rentals, advertising, food, coffee, and hotel rooms.
The city brought in more than 21 agencies from across the state and country to patrol neighborhoods near campus, while 11,000 Cal Poly students and guests attended the “Morning on the Green” music festival.
The city also closed roads on the morning of the event and established safety enhancement zones that doubled fines for violations like unruly gatherings and open containers during the weekends leading up to and including the event.
This year, the city arrested 8 individuals and issued 37 citations over March 6-9, March 13-16, and March 17, a 68% decrease in arrests and a nearly 18% decrease in citations since 2025.
The roughly $13,000 increase in costs was due to inflation and a required upgrade to the Police Observation Device camera system, according to Wallace.
While the city continues financing and coordinating patrols of the neighborhoods near the former location of the St. Fratty’s block party, many Cal Poly students and their guests have started attending the “Morning on the Green” festival on Cal Poly’s Lower Sports Complex Fields. This year, there was no effort made by students to gather in the streets, according to SLOPD.
Some students said they didn’t see the point in the amount of money and logistics devoted to policing the neighborhoods when there were little to no efforts to organize a street party last year or this year.
“I feel like the police should be doing that anyway. You don’t need to pay them extra, and it’s just more money going towards that and away from the school,” Annika Gruettemann, an environmental protection and management freshman, said. “If you get more cops on [campus events] instead of in the street, it’ll probably cost less, and it’s also less manpower.”
While Gruettemann chose not to attend any St. Fratty’s events, English freshman Lily Campbell and their friends were approached by police officers on campus, on their way to Morning on the Green.
“We were approached a couple times. One of our friends had a Yerba Mate or something, and the cop came up and was like, ‘What’s in that can?” Campbell said.
As freshmen, Gruettemann and Campbell said they have no previous experiences to compare it to, but that Morning on the Green is a fun and successful alternative to the street party.
“[The city] should just invest more in Morning on the Green because it seems like a lot of people went to that, and it was really fun,” Campbell said.
