Eight police cars are parked on Olive Street between 17th and 18th avenues. A dozen officers wait for the order to move toward a house about a block away. The police can hear loud music and jubilant voices ringing through the night air.
When the entire Eugene Police Department Party Patrol has assembled, the group walks to the house. Officers are positioned by the back doors and windows in case anyone inside the house attempts to leave when the police arrive.
With video cameras rolling, the police knock on the door. An officer informs the party’s host that a noise complaint has been filed and asks the host for permission to enter the house. The host lets the Party Patrol in and that’s the end of the party.
Underage partygoers who have locked themselves in bedrooms or closets are ferreted out by Party Patrollers. The 15 to 20 people at the party are corralled in the living room. The police and the partygoers — a mix of students from the University, Lane Community College and Oregon State University — exchange questions. A student asks why the police are videotaping everything. Police ask who bought the alcohol. The police note that the partygoers and the party host were cooperative and civil — somewhat of a rarity, the officers said.
Those of legal drinking age are asked to show identification and allowed to leave. The minors are given field sobriety tests. On this occasion, nine citations for minor in possession of alcohol are issued. The party host receives a citation for allowing minors to consume alcohol on private premises, which carries a fine of up to $1,000.
This scene is played out time and again on Friday and Saturday nights at addresses throughout the West University neighborhood and at student housing complexes near Autzen Stadium. The EPD Party Patrol is making a concerted effort to reduce the number of alcohol related complaints it receives, discourage minors from drinking alcohol and stop riots before they start.
“We’re trying to get enforcement to a level where the message gets across that the person throwing the party will be held accountable,” said Lt. Rick Gilliam, the Party Patrol’s commanding officer.

Curbing a drinking culture
EPD began the Party Patrol in October 1998 in reaction to the second consecutive Halloween riot.
“That was all alcohol-fueled — it wasn’t a riot for any known cause I am aware of,” Gilliam said. “The drinking problem, in our estimation, was pretty out of control in the campus area.”
Predictably, students are not happy with the Party Patrol and its policies. Confrontations between students and officers issuing citations are common. Students take issue with the use of scarce resources to police what they see as a minor problem.

In addition to the riots, the EPD noticed an increase in alcohol-related calls for service, which include disputes at bars, disorderly parties, furnishing alcohol to minors and noise complaints. Complaints peaked in 1998 at 2,499, according to EPD reports.
“We thought that was way too many,” Gilliam said. “It’s amazing how many calls we don’t even get to because there are just so many of them.”
EPD had been issuing more warnings than citations, going to parties and asking hosts to quiet down and keep things under control.
“They weren’t getting the message,” he said. “They were taking advantage of our niceness.”
EPD changed its tack and is now practicing “zero tolerance,” or as Gilliam characterized it, a consistent enforcement policy. Minors caught drinking are no longer merely given a warning. The new policy, which is costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars annually in overtime, is reflected in the number of MIPs issued in the years since consistent enforcement began. In 1997, EPD issued 505 MIPs. By 1999, that number had nearly tripled. There is no tolerance for other alcohol and partying related offenses either. Gilliam said the Party Patrol is also issuing more citations for furnishing alcohol to minors, open containers and noise violations.
Although EPD has adopted a more aggressive stance when it comes to enforcement, officials realize they will never completely eradicate partying and under-age drinking.
However, the department is trying to curb what Gilliam called a “tremendous drinking culture” around the University.
“U of O has a reputation of being a party school — people come for that,” he said.
In addition to the enforcement, EPD is involved in a variety of education and outreach programs meant to discourage underage drinking and irresponsible partying.

Paying the price
The cost of staffing the Party Patrol is of concern to many. Taxpayers spent $92,000 on overtime pay for Party Patrol officers in fiscal year 2000. In addition, the Friday and Saturday night patrols pull officers away from other areas of the city to patrol the party beat, leaving some neighborhoods without coverage.
“It’s just very staff-intensive,” Gilliam said. “It’s costing the taxpayers a lot of money.”
EPD has been looking at ways to recoup some of these costs. The department is especially concerned with the cost of responding to the same address multiple times. An ordinance currently being reviewed by the City Council would assess a special response fee to individuals who host parties that require multiple police responses to the same address.
Eugene City Manager Jim Johnson noted that the idea for the special response fee came, in part, from ordinances already in existence in Corvallis and Berkeley, Calif.
Ward 3 City Councilor Bonny Bettman, who represents the neighborhoods where most of the Party Patrol’s calls for service originate, said she is generally opposed to the philosophy of a fee-for-service approach to policing. She said, however, that she would support a version of the special response fee ordinance “with some clarification and maybe some tweaking.”

“It’s worth a try. Right now, it is the only solution,” she said. “The ordinance is attempting to strike a balance, focusing on illegal activity and being a deterrent. It puts the onus on the party giver to be responsible.
“Nobody thinks it will eradicate partying,” she added.
Christa Shively, ASUO community outreach director, has been involved in talks with EPD about the special response fee ordinance. She said she understands the rationale for such a fee and even supports the general message it tries to send.
“They’re going back to the same residence from year to year because people aren’t practicing responsible partying,” she said.
But the current version of the ordinance is too loosely worded and open to interpretation, Shively said.

Unwelcome guests
Relations between the Party Patrol and the partygoers they interact with are often hostile. It’s not surprising, considering the circumstances surrounding most of the interactions between the two groups. Students don’t understand why there is so much attention being paid to their activities.
Jay Thomas, a member of Theta Chi fraternity, was visiting the chapter house Friday night when a squad of police arrived to investigate a noise complaint. Thomas, a senior of legal drinking age, watched as police issued MIPs to people around the party. He said he wonders why so many police officers are necessary to bust what could hardly be described as a large, out-of-control party.
“There’s methamphetamine houses in this area,” he said. “That is far more dangerous.”
Connor Sellers, a senior who was also at the Theta Chi fraternity, said he thinks the Party Patrol is a “terrible misallocation of funds.”
Police enforcement of partying at other some Pacific-10 Conference schools is decidedly less stringent than enforcement in Eugene. James Tomlinson, a University of Arizona student who was issued an MIP citation while visiting Eugene for a Ducks football game, said that police in Tucson are much
more lenient when it comes to underage drinking and parties in general.
Sgt. Randy Fougner with the Tempe, Ariz., police department, said police who patrol Arizona State University spend most of their time “dealing with getting the party broken up. Checking IDs and policing alcohol violations is an ancillary concern.”
Eugene police said they need to go into the parties they bust with lots of officers for their own safety. Party Patrollers have been injured in the line of duty by drunken students who get out of control, Gilliam said. Six were injured last fall.
“Of course, if it turns out to be a candlelight dinner with two people, it’s a little bit of overkill,” Gilliam said.