Mirror - Vol. 17, No. 03 - October 08, 1992

              The
FairfieldMRRORV Volume 17, No. 3 Thursday, October 8, 1992 Objects in Mirror are closer than they appear
Students and Police Clash
at Fairfield Beach
Debra De Shong
News Editor
It's four a.m. on a Satur-day
morning and about fifteen
friends are sitting around finishing
a keg. Suddenly, there is a knock at
the door. When the door opens, an
irate police officer stands with feet
apart, hands on hips and ticket in
hand.
If you live at the beach,
this scenario probably sounds fa-miliar.
A senior beach resident
found himself in the situation de-scribed
above and claims, "There
was no reason to ticket us, we were
definitely harassed." The student
claims there was barely any noise
and the officer used abusive lan-guage.
The officer allegedly said,
"If I have to come back here, I'm
going to lock your ass up." The of-ficer
forced the student to empty
the house after he issued him an
$88 ticket for disturbing the peace.
He plans to appeal the ticket.
This is far from an iso-lated
incident. Another student
beach-resident said, "They're
going absolutely crazy down here."
He recalls the Tuesday night the
police broke up his party. "There
was no warning, just a knock on
the front door and he demanded to
see everyone who lived in the
house," he said.
The three occupants of
the house were each issued a ticket
for $88 and they also plan to fight
them. They feel there were a few
things that seemed strange about
Students partying at Fairfield Beach. photo: K. Guterl
the incident. It was midnight, and
only about 25-30 people were in
the house. Also, there was no loud
music.
"This is ridiculous, these
cops come down here every week-end
and just look to give out tick-ets,"
said the student beach-resi-dent.
He witnessed a student caught
with an open container of alcohol
and he claims the officer, "laughed
like he was excited about it."
Another student-rented
beach house feels they were made
the example for other students. The
police came to their house, barged
in while the students were in the
process of breaking up the party,
and shined their flashlights around
the living room. "This is a real
pain," said one resident, "they're
making a real mint off of us." The
four residents were each issued a
ticket for $88 and are all planning
to fight it. The students know who
called with the complaint and the
person lives at least four houses
away from them.
One senior beach resident
feels that the police target students
because they think the students
must be rich if they live at the
beach. "I'm just hoping they'll
relax because I can't afford," she
said.
A major complaint by
students is that they are not issued
a warning, which is required by a
town ordinance.
The number of tickets
issued at the beach has been un-usually
high this year. The week-end
of September 26, twenty-one
tickets were issued for non-motor
vehicle misdemeanors including
disturbing the peace and posses-sion
of open containers of alcohol
on public property. Ticket prices
range from $78 to $88. According
to Police Chief Ron Sullivan,
"normally 10 tickets would be
high." Most tickets were in re-sponse
to calls and Sullivan says
this year started out busier than
any he can remember.
Sullivan feels that if the
students just had some more re-spect,
things would quiet down
naturally. "If you're up at 4 am
screaming, it will annoy someone,"
he said.
Murray Farber, Director
of Public Relations for Fairfield
University, says students and year-round
residents are just on differ-ent
life cycles. What is late to a
resident is early to a student. The
biggest complaint he hears is about
(continued to p. 3)
Underclassmen
react to beach
situation
Caitlin M. Wheelan
Staff Writer
In reaction to the recent
letter from the beach residents
asking underclassmen to stay
away from the beach if uninvited,
many students feel the request
will be ineffective.
Some students feel that
unless the beach residents spe-cifically
designate a party as pri-vate,
they cannot expect the un-derclassmen
to stay away. As one
sophomore says, "If it's an open
party, anyone has the right to go
in."
Despite the letter, the
beach remains a popular partying
spot, particularly with the
townhouse policy this year. One
junior feels that the students will
not listen to the beach residents
and continue to go to the beach
anyway. "Especially with the new
townhouse policy, the students
have nowhere else to go."
One student, who claims
that living on the beach was not a
big draw for her in choosing Fair-field,
also doubts that students
will stop going to the beach or
choose the townhouses instead.
"The beach is only popular at the
beginning and end of the year,"
she says, "In the winter they go to
the townhouses anyway." She
does not think the students will
stay away even to enhance their
chances of being able to live there
themselves. Another student
agrees, "Students who want to go
to the beach to drink are going to
go and try, even with the restric-tion."
Early Warning System Fails
Debra De Shong
News Editor
They say that throwing
money at a problem is never a real
solution. The Fairfield University
Student Association (FUSA) has
just learned that lesson. Over the
summer, a plan was developed by
students and University officials
to alleviate the tensions at the
beach. The system, dubbed the
"Early Warning System" was ap-propriated
$22,000 from FUSA,
but collapsed due to a lack of com-munication.
In the Sept. 24 issue of
"The Mirror," the version as re-lated
by FUSA President Steve
Shannon was printed. According
to Shannon, the police agreed to
contact University security when a
call of complaint about a student-beach
house was received. Secu-rity
in turn would alert two stu-dents
hired by FUSA to go to the
house in question to alert the occu-pants
to break up the party. The
police would still respond to the
house in violation, but there would
be no need to ticket the house.
However, when this ver-sion
of the system was noticed by
some beach residents, it was
brought to the attention ofthe Police
Chief Ron Sullivan.
Sullivan said, "The pur-pose
of the Early Wrining System
was never to alert students so the
party can be broken up before we
get there." He was under the im-pression
that the role of the stu-dents
was to maintain records for
the university as to who was vio-lating
the law so that they may be
reprimanded by university offi-cials.
"I thought it was an attempt
by the students to be self-polic-ing."
Shannon says, this was never
the intention of the program.
Yet another version of the
system was given by Murray Far-ber,
Director of Public Relations
for Fairfield University. He says
the purpose of the program was
definitely for students to self-po-lice.
According to Farber, this
program was a way to reprimand
students who created a distrubance
but were not arrested. "The stu-dents
on duty can testify against
the violators," said Farber.
Sullivan says he would
be willing to participate in a differ-ent
version of the system, where
the officers would alert security
after they reach the scene of the
complaint. "I don't want to reject
any attempts by anybody to calm
things down here.
'The program is basically
dead," says Shannon. There are no
plans to re-work the system. Sulli-van
feels that the students should
be pro-active in their patroling,
and breaking up parties before the
police were called.
Students Snagged
at Townhouses
Jennifer Luongo
Assistant News Editor
Two juniors, Steve
Murphy and Frank Longobardi,
may soon be forced to move out of
their townhouse and into the resi-dence
halls, as punishment for a
first violation of the Alcohol Pol-icy.
Last Tuesday, Rev. W. Lau-rence
O'Neil, Dean of Students,
decided the two students should
lose their townhouse priveledges
for allowing underage drinking in
their house. A head resident broke
up their unregistered party, where
26 people were present.
Steve Murphy said, "I'm
disappointed that the policies be-tween
the dorms and the
townhouses are so completely dif-ferent.
We are being kicked out of
our house for a first offense." He
added, "Frank and I have never
been written up."
The case is now under
appeal and the final decision on
whether or not Murphy and Lon-gobardi
will lose their townhouse
will most likely be decided this
week. The two residents have
suggested alternative punishments,
such as planning non-alcoholic
socials as well as running alcohol
awareness sessions.
However, Assistant Di-rector
of Security, Glen Griffin,
thinks the townhouse policy is
"having a calming effect."
One angry townhouse
resident stated, "I have so much
more freedom at home. The policy
is very offensive and I wish I had
graduated last year."
Nursing
Students Get
Ultimatum:
Drive or Fail
page 3
Class of '93
fears unem-ployment;
class of '70
feared bomby
weather
page 6
Alumni glad
to be alums
after seeing
TH policy
at work
page 11
Movie critic
scalps "The
Last of the
Mohicans"
page 13
Women's
tennis team
captures
MAAC crown
page 20