As Mike Mamolen looped around College Avenue late Friday night, his eyes scanned the road and sidewalks for swerving vehicles and drunken pedestrians.

After all, in his eight years on the force, Mamolen, a State College Police Department officer, said he has pretty much seen it all. Almost nothing shocks him anymore, he said.

"Things just get routine after a while," he said. "Sometimes you go through the motions and forget the impact you can have."

Mamolen estimated that in his career he has made m ore than 1,000 arrests, including about 200 for driving under the influence.

Recently, the State College Borough Council has discussed the idea of asking Penn State for more compensation to fund the borough's police department.

"The community does not want to tolerate the bad effects of alcohol use," Borough Council President Cathy Dauler said. "We are all working all the time to address this issue."

The State College Police Department, concerned with the percent of crime that is alcohol-fueled, has been tracking downtown incidents since 1999, State College Police Lt.

Dana Leonard said. So far the tracking has shown that half to two-thirds of downtown crime was related to alcohol, he said.

Mamolen sees these statistics in action every time he is on nighttime duty.

"Seventy-five percent of the things I deal with are alcohol-related in some fashion," Mamolen said. "We take people to the hospital all the time for alcohol poisoning. Last night we had someone with a BAC of 0.31."

Mamolen said the highest BAC he has seen was a 0.33. The legal limit to drive in Pennsylvania is 0.08.

Arresting at least one intoxicated student or driver has become commonplace for Mamolen, who usually works the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift Wednesday through Saturday.

Friday was no exception.

At 2:45 a.m., Mamolen responded to a call that a car had struck a tree near the corner of East Irvin Avenue and Garner Street. When he arrived, another officer was already on the scene, talking to the driver, whose gray BMW had jumped the curb, leveled a no-parking sign and came to rest in front of a tree.

Mamolen and the other police officer questioned the driver and administered a series of field sobriety tests.

"We had suspicion that he had been drinking before we started giving him the sobriety tests," he said. "He really smelled like alcohol."

The driver could not take two steps along the white crosswalk line without stumbling. Mamolen then arrested the man for suspicion of DUI and another police officer took him to Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Mamolen added that the man's BMW would probably be impounded.

"Our shift is pretty aggressive with DUI enforcement," he said. "It's the things that don't happen that are important. We're just trying to protect people."

Leonard said the State College Police Department works closely with the Penn State University Police when dealing with alcohol abuse.

"Freshmen who go out in town are sometimes too intoxicated to make it back to their dorms and are picked up by University Police," he said. "The State College police handle how they are furnished with alcohol off campus."

Even though Mamolen has to deal with a lot of intoxicated students, he said he likes being a police officer because every day on the job is different.

"I have always wanted to be a police officer," he said. "It's one of those things you dream about as a kid, and I couldn't see myself sitting in an office for 30 years."

Even on a night like Friday, with gusty wind and temperatures that hovered in the mid-teens, droves of students ventured out to bars and fraternity parties. Mamolen's scanner started a steady stream of calls around midnight.

Dauler said the borough has to concentrate on continuing to protect the community.

"The [alcohol] problem will never go away completely," she said. "More can be done, but that does not mean that nothing is being done about it."

Penn State provides State College with financial support, policies and personnel to contain the problem, Dauler said.

"We are trying all sorts of things to make a difference," she said. "Everyone tries to do their part."

For members of the State College Police Department, such as Mamolen, this means trying to keep the streets safer.

Around 1:30 a.m. Mamolen answered a call to a house on the 700 block of South Pugh Street for attempted burglary.

However, the "burglar" turned out to be a lost drunk.

Mamolen and two other officers arrived within seconds of the call, and five minutes later they emerged with a young man in handcuffs.

"According to the breathalyzer test, his BAC was 0.21," he said.

The suspect said he was visiting friends at Penn State and didn't know where he was. Mamolen called an ambulance to pick the suspect up for a possible "conscious alcohol overdose."

However, not everyone who appears to be intoxicated is stopped by police.

Mamolen said driving a car, fighting or disturbing the peace while drunk will usually lead to an arrest, but those who are simply staggering or stumbling on their way home will usually be left alone.

"You have to pick and choose your battles," he said.

Council member Elizabeth Goreham said she thinks Penn State needs to do a better job of battling alcohol abuse instead of just pushing students to drink less.

She added that students need to face more consequences from Penn State for off-campus drinking.

"We have to stop a bad habit when it starts," Goreham said. "Some people leave school and find that they have a serious drinking problem when it's too late."

Over the course of the night, Mamolen responded to other situations that dealt with alcohol in one way or another -- a noise complaint in an apartment complex at 472 E. College Ave at 11:25 p.m., a call to check a possible fake ID at the All-American Rathskeller, 108 S. Pugh Street, at 11:45 p.m. At 2 a.m., he broke up a fight between two females who were yelling obscenities at each other along College Avenue.

Mamolen said he keeps a sense of humor while at work -- "sometimes, you have to laugh" -- but that a lot of the alcohol-related incidents he deals with daily are no joke.

"It just takes one bad decision to really mess things up for people," he said. "Some people just can't control themselves."