The annual student-led St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in San Luis Obispo escalated to new levels after several years of recovering from a major roof-collapse accident and the global pandemic.
Dubbed “St. Fratty’s Day” by revelers, the block party at the intersection of Hathway and Bond streets swelled to 4,000 people—double the attendance from last year. The SLO Police Department arrested 18 people and issued 87 citations to partiers March 17 and 18.
Longtime neighborhood resident Kathie Walker and her family were woken up at 4 a.m. on March 18 in their Frederick Street home by fireworks exploding outside. She saw college students partying all around, some of whom were climbing a utility pole. Walker told New Times she stopped roughly 10 publicly intoxicated students from scaling it closer to 7 a.m. but added that others continued their attempts to climb the pole once she walked away.
“Usually, they climb it and get arrested,” Walker said. “This year, the officers didn’t enter that area. They drove through that intersection, got booed, and kept driving.”
The St. Fratty’s Day bash was a low-key house party when it originated in 2009, Walker explained. It usually takes place the Saturday before Cal Poly’s winter finals week. But it has morphed into a more raucous celebration over the years, crescendoing with a roof collapse in 2015 that sent 10 people to the hospital.
“2015 was the worst, then it dropped down, and later COVID shut everything down,” she said. “It wasn’t bad until last year.”
Over the years, residential groups like the Residents for Quality Neighborhoods complained to the SLO City Council about the noise and nuisance issues stemming from college parties. They even asked for St. Fratty’s Day to be canceled. In 2017, the City Council established a “safety enhancement period” where fines for party-related violations, like excessive noise and drinking in public, were doubled between March 1 and 17.
SLOPD enforced the magnified fines this year. Under regular circumstances, violations for noise, unruly gatherings, public urination, and open containers cost $350, $700, and $1,000 for first, second, and third offenses, respectively. The fines jump to $700 and $1,000 with the safety enhancement zone in place.
“Fine amounts are different per person based on if they have received a citation in the last year for the same infraction, the amount goes up,” said SLOPD spokesperson Christine Wallace. “For those people arrested for DUI, public intox., and other misdemeanors, their fines have a base bail rate but may be changed by the judge when they go to court.”
At the March 21 City Council meeting, SLOPD Chief Rick Scott said that the enhancement zone ended at 7 a.m. on March 18, which was also when the Hathway and Bond intersection was closed to vehicle traffic. The block party crowd dispersed by 10:30 a.m. after which SLOPD reopened the roads. Scott announced at the meeting that police will do an “after action analysis” to study what tactics worked and where they failed. They are continuing conversations with impacted residents.
For one second-year Cal Poly student who requested anonymity, St. Fratty’s Day is “fun.” She told New Times that students traditionally wake up at 3:17 a.m. in honor of March 17, and that people from all over California thronged to the Hathway Street block party this year.
“I saw way too many people from my hometown, and my friend saw people from his high school who flew down to go to this block party,” she said.
She witnessed people crawling up the utility pole, getting into fights, and even urinating in public. Canceling St. Fratty’s Day would be hard, according to her.
“You can’t cancel the giant mob of students standing on the street. I’m young and naive, so I’m going to have this opinion,” she said. “It’s ridiculous to put yourself in a situation and live about a block away in a college town and complain about kids partying. … You got to move somewhere else.”
But for resident Walker, packing up and leaving isn’t so simple. She added that she doesn’t have a problem with her student neighbors, but rather the mentality of “taking over the neighborhood for one day of partying.”
“When we bought our property, we weren’t surrounded by students or fraternities,” she said. “They’re transitional and move on with their lives, and will hopefully own a house. I wonder how they’d feel if someone then told them to move.” Δ
This article appears in Mar 23 – Apr 2, 2023.
If there is a silver lining, I am glad to see young people doing the stupid stuff. When I read about them constantly texting their parents, not even wanting a driver’s license, avoiding sex, basically acting nothing like the ’60’s through 90’s for similar young people, then I start to worry about America’s future. Maybe they’ll be OK too.