9/14/98

ATHENS, Ohio -- Halloween revelry, with costumes and masks, should be fun, but it must also be safe, Ohio University President Robert Glidden and Student Senate President Darien Moss agreed today in a joint announcement. "Halloween crowds in Athens have been getting larger, attracting many people of high-school age and even younger," President Glidden said Monday.

Arrests, mostly for alcohol-related offenses, have increased from 90 in 1991 to 199 last year.

"The fact that most of the arrests are of people from out-of-town is simply more evidence that the event has gotten out of hand," Glidden said. Therefore, the university is making policy decisions and recommendations to Athens City Council to discourage visitors from driving in for that weekend.

Student Senate President Moss said many students realize that while this event is not sanctioned by the university, it nonetheless damages its reputation. "These events do reach the public," she said. "They do receive quite a bit of news media coverage. We know this event is never going to help the university. It is only going to feed into a party school image, and we know there is so much more to Ohio University than that."

Glidden and Moss agree with an editorial that ran after last Halloween in The Post, the independent student newspaper: "The number of people who visit Athens for Halloween is too large for Uptown to handle."

Moss said the university recommendations "address two of the major concerns students have: safety and the reputation of the university. I think it is good that we are addressing it well in advance and being as fair as we can be. Student rights and student responsibilities were really kept in mind in making these decisions."

Glidden and Moss, who met with other student leaders Sunday, said the following actions are being taken:

* The university will strictly enforce parking regulations and will not make university lots available to visitors. Cars without Ohio University parking permits will be ticketed and towed. "We do this to send a strong signal that we want to discourage out-of-town visitors," Glidden said, "including many who come from other Ohio and Midwest campuses."

* The university will restrict guests in the residence halls to one per resident because so many students invite guests for that weekend, and sometimes multiple guests that exceed safe limits. "This is not a message that we don't want students to have a good time or enjoy being with their friends," Moss said. "We're just looking out for the students' overall safety, and protecting their campus."

* Students will be held accountable for the actions of their guests. If a guest breaks a window, the host is responsible for paying for its repair. Students are advised: "Don't invite friends for whom you can't assume responsibility, and don't accept as guests 'friends' whom you don't know."

* The university will engage in an extensive educational campaign for students between now and Halloween concerning the consequences of these new measures.

* The university is also recommending to Athens City Council that it eliminate live entertainment at the Halloween event, urging Council to provide recorded music at dispersed points to reduce crowd concentrations. "This is a matter of public safety," Glidden said. "Last year, we were informed that it was only through good luck that disaster was avoided as packed bodies pressed against some of the storefront windows."

Last year, peak Halloween crowds were estimated at more than 30,000. The university and town each have a population of about 20,000. The event costs Athens city taxpayers reportedly more than $40,000. In the past four years, the cost to Ohio University has averaged more than $25,000 for known damages to property and overtime for hourly staff. This does not include the value of many hours of time by scores of university volunteers and residence hall staff who work throughout the Halloween weekend to protect the campus.