On St. Patrick's Day, the State College Police Department handled triple the number of calls of a typical Saturday, and they had double the usual number of officers on duty.

Sgt. John Gardner said as many as 75 percent of their 78 calls were alcohol-related.

On a typical Saturday, police handle 25 to 30 calls, he said.

Police made four driving under the influence arrests Saturday, three of which were for people with blood alcohol contents of more than 0.2, one of which was as high as 0.27.

In Pennsylvania, the legal BAC for people over 21 is 0.10.

"It's scary and alarming when people jump in a car when they have a BAC of 0.27 or 0.21," Gardner said.

"It points to the problem of when people use alcohol to excess."

The four DUI arrests Saturday evening merely touched the surface of the amount of alcohol abuse over the St. Patrick's Day weekend, Gardner said.

State College police issued 31 summary citations from 4 p.m. Saturday until 4 a.m. Sunday.

Police had extra officers on duty, but Gardner said the police department wasn't sure what to expect since it has been a few years since St. Patrick's Day was on a Saturday.

"It was one of the busiest St. Patrick's Days in a number of years," he said.

Gardner added that the cold weather might have helped curb the number of incidents.

Gardner said there were not many fights, but several residents were cited for having open containers of alcohol and for underage drinking.

Examples of citations from early Sunday morning included one for mooning and another for smashing a beer bottle.

Still, despite the alcohol-related problems, Gardner said they did not reach the magnitude of problems typical of a football weekend when people might drink the entire weekend.

"It wasn't like a football weekend because you didn't have the masses," he said. "But it kept State College police busy."