Poor me! 

You can probably find Cal Poly student and Alpha Chi Omega sorority member Lindsy Mobley at the beach in a bikini, even though it’s 45 degrees outside. And at that beach, the young Mobley will probably be lamenting the fact that life is no longer the way it used to be in San Luis Obispo, the college town that is losing its college-y-ness. 

Oh, the humanity of it all! This woman who has seen it all—and obviously knows it all—in her short 20 years on this planet was so pissed off at this pattern of SLO’s changing ways that she blasted the town on theodysseyonline.com in a post on Dec. 9. Her article headline: “SLO efforts to reduce college culture a success; and morale has never been lower.” Her subhead: “School spirit decreases as Cal Poly’s college town slowly diminishes.” 

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I wasn’t aware that school spirit had anything to do with the number of parties thrown per year and the amount of drinking that happens in a university town, around a university campus.

She said what it all comes down to is “we don’t do anything anymore.” 

Those poor wee babes. 

“There have been considerably less parties this year than ever before,” she writes, “I remember hearing about Poly Royal, Cesar Chavez Day, St. Fratty’s Day, Homecoming … And now? Now we barely do anything.”

I guess things have changed a lot since she started college at the ripe old age of 18. She spends a few sentences complaining about a noise ordinance that SLO passed in 2010. So, you were here for that? 

There are a lot of stupid rules in SLO Town. I’ll give her that much. For instance: The whole front yard parking ordinance thing that pitted boat owner and longtime SLO resident Joseph Gambucci against the city earlier this year, because (and this is just a wild guess, here) his neighbor called code compliance to be a dick. Because that boat wasn’t parked directly in front of his garage, but to the side, Gambucci was cited. 

That ordinance probably wasn’t intended to nail guys like Gambucci to the code compliance wall. What it was probably intended to do is keep stupid idiots from parking on top of sidewalks and lawns. But that doesn’t matter. 

Because folks of a certain age like to pile people into houses to pay cheap rent and park their cars willy nilly all over the place, SLO Town now has an ordinance in place to prevent that kind of dastardly deed from happening.

Thanks a lot, college students! Now, we don’t get to do anything anymore! No more puking in the streets! No more getting raped at a fraternity party! No more drinking at 6 a.m.! No more parking on the lawn! 

Geez. Where’s the fun in that? 

There is none! 

So, you can’t be asshole-loud at some ungodly hour in the morning. So, the police keep an extra eye on things for big party days. Did you really want to drink and drive that badly? Or stumble down the street at 8 a.m. after doing Irish car bombs for two hours and crack your leg on that stupid bench on Higuera and pass out half on the sidewalk, half on Bubblegum Alley? 

The real reason the SLO City Council passes ordinances is not because college students need to stop being college-y, it’s because they need to stop letting their stupidity and “culture” affect people who aren’t enrolled as students. There are a couple of reasons laws are passed. People do something that affects the community in an adverse way (Hello, gun violence!), and people complain. 

People get cranky after getting woken up at 3 a.m. one too many times on a Wednesday by a couple of girls scream-laughing their way down the street or dudes yelling at each other. And City Council members need to prove to the community that they’re good at something other than putting people to sleep at meetings. 

That odor ordinance passed last year to defend the city against becoming engulfed in that stinky sweet stench of outdoor marijuana grows? 

It’s because some dude was growing marijuana close to downtown, and his neighbor complained about the smell of it at a council meeting, begging City Council members to do something about it.

So they did. 

No more non-normal smells! Wait, what’s considered a normal smell, again?

Oh the humanity! 

Esteemed Mayor Jan Marx stepped right up to that challenge, supporting the introduction of an ordinance meant to control smells. Smells! Maybe we should introduce a mandatory shower ordinance after I complain to the council about the body odor I’m subjected to at work. It’s making me violent. 

So here’s a little note to all you college students: party all you want. Just don’t do something stupid like piss your neighbor off.

As in, don’t piss or puke on your neighbor’s lawn. Don’t yell at your friends in the middle of a sleeping neighborhood. Don’t drive drunk. And you fraternities that keep getting banned from associating with Cal Poly—stop being associated with sexual assault, violence, and racism. Nobody’s picking on you guys. You have a tendency to pick on yourselves. Don’t worry, though, I know that reasoning part of your brain isn’t fully developed yet.  

The reasoning part of the Shredder’s brain may not be fully developed either. Email comments to [email protected].