Cal Poly students and visitors stormed the streets on the morning of March 16 dressed in festive green outfits for St. Fratty’s Day.
The third weekend of San Luis Obispo Police Department’s (SLOPD) St. Patrick’s Day safety enhancement zone (SEZ) began at 12:01 am on March 15 and ended at 7 a.m. on March 18. During SEZ, fines for noise violations, unruly gatherings, open containers and public urination are doubled.
SEZ was in place for three weekends, but the majority of the illegal activity and enforcement action happened on the third weekend.
Additional enforcement action included misdemeanor arrests for drunk in public, minor possession of alcohol, DUI and climbing utility poles.
According to a City of SLO news release, SLOPD issued 18 noise violations, five unruly gatherings, 99 open containers, nine public urinations, five drunk in publics, 24 minors in possessions, four climbing a utilities pole and three DUIs.
Photo and video junior Owen Beim and member of the Kappa Sigma said the fraternity has two fraternity houses on Hathway Ave. Kappa Sigma was planning to not host any events because they knew the risks.
Beim lives in an apartment unit by Campus Bottle. He said he woke up at 6 a.m. because it was so loud and walked outside. Both of the Kappa Sigma houses were flooded by people, according to Beim. He went over to the house and stood in the front yard, trying to get people off of their front lawn.
“We knew that the police were going to give unruly gathering tickets and noise tickets if they saw a substantial amount of people in a front yard,” Beim said. “For the house I was at, the police were helping us out a lot which was super kind of them because they knew we were trying to get people out.”
At the other house, Kappa Sigma received a $700 dollar ticket, which Beim said was a bummer but that he understood. They were considering appealing it because of the advice of a police officer.
“I just saw a bunch of broken windows [at] my friend’s house on Hathway, all of her fences got broken and a bunch of damaged windshields,” Beim said. “It was just like so intense to the point where I was like, ‘Wow, I have never seen anything like this.’”
Beim said that compared to previous years, this year’s events were blown out of proportion.
Beim came back to his apartment to find ten random people holding his personal items.
“One of them even had a camera of mine in his hand and then another just had some clothes or something like that,” Beim said. “I just had to kick them out and like scream at them, which was not really that fun.”
Beim said he was disappointed by the actions of those visited from out of town.
“Seeing people visit our school and just leave it destroyed is honestly pretty sad,” Beim said.
There was widespread property damage and vandalism seen throughout the neighborhoods, yet only one incident of vandalism was reported, according to the release.
A senior who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of legal repercussions faced issues of mass amounts of strangers trying to get on their roof during the St. Fratty’s block party.
“It was quite awful and scary because no one that we personally knew, none of my roommates, were on the roof…all five of my roommates were kind of barricading our doors and like fighting people from getting inside,” they said.
The student and their roomates did not know people were on the roof until a friend texted them. This was their first year living in this house and they were under the impression this wouldn’t be a problem because it hadn’t been for past renters.
“We’re like, ‘Holy cow!’ Like, our roof is covered by people. We don’t know a single one of them,” they said.
After the student and their roomates realized they needed additonal help, they went to the police for assistance. Later, they received a citation from the police.
Once they got people to leave their property, they saw mass amounts of destruction to the background and sides of the house.
“Our gutters were bent all around our house, one of them completely,” they said. “One side completely fell off…Our fence is like destroyed on all sides. There’s a bunch of our personal furniture in our backyard completely destroyed. We had surfboards in the back that were like stomped on.”
Along with the damage, they had to clean up their house after the trespassers left.
“It was just picking up pieces of trash all over our property. There’s trash on our roof that we can’t reach. Our house was completely muddy because of like people trespassing and then like walking through our house,” they said. “The one thing that was nice to see some students came back in the morning and they helped us clean up our front yard which was really kind.”
The student wishes the trespassers recognized the gravity of the situation.
“It was a really dangerous situation,” they said. “People could have died…We have ring footage of people trying to get in and putting us in danger but like other people on the roof are jumping off the roof…we’re all kind of like in shock.”
During the SEZ, SLO Fire responded to 12 calls for service in the neighborhoods and seven on-campus incidents related to excessive consumption of alcohol, according to the release.
Arrest and citation records have been provided to Cal Poly student affairs, Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR), which holds students accountable for off-campus criminal behavior.
This is an ongoing story. Mustang News will post updates as more information becomes available.
Correction: This article was corrected to fix a date.