The State College Police Department received more overnight calls and made more DUI arrests last weekend than any St. Patrick's Day weekend since 2001, according to a police department analysis.

Over St. Patrick's Day weekend last year, State College police received 141 calls and made seven DUI arrests.

Last weekend, during the student-created "State Patrick's Day," State College police said they received 149 calls between Friday night and Sunday, a 5 percent increase from last year.

Police also made 11 DUI arrests last weekend, which was a 57 percent increase.

"It had more of an impact on the community than last year's real holiday," Sgt. Chris Fishel said. "I think you can say it's a significant impact."

Last weekend's figures were also higher than St. Patrick's Day weekends in 2001 and 2002. St. Patrick's Day fell on a weekday from 2003 to 2005.

Fishel said overnight calls and DUI arrests last weekend were both about 450 percent higher than the same weekend last year, which in the past has not been a special occasion.

State College police received 27 overnight calls and made two DUI arrests over the same weekend last year, he said.

University Police Sgt. Don Hazel said there were "hardly any incidents" on campus over the weekend and most incidents took place downtown.

University Police Lt. Bill Moerschbacher said seven people on campus were taken to the hospital Sunday for dangerous drinking, but he said that was a typical weekend figure.

Joe Veltre (junior-biochemistry) -- who was the creator of the almost 4,600-member Facebook.com group "The Official Group to Move St. Patrick's Day 2007" -- said that he was not pleased the number of reported calls and DUI arrests were so high.

"I really was hoping that this year would be different," he said. "In no way were we really hoping that more students would get arrested."

Penn State spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said that Penn State continues to be concerned about the number of trips to the emergency room, arrests and DUIs that are all results of excessive student drinking.

"We are always concerned when a day is set aside specifically for excessive drinking," she said.

Tom Kurtz, State College borough assistant manager, said that he was not familiar with the most recent figures from the State College Police Department, but then added that the State College Borough Council was concerned about "State Patty's Day."

"I think Borough Council has consistently expressed concerns about underage drinking and problem drinking in the community," he added.

Kurtz said he had not heard any discussions about asking bars to contribute to overtime costs for police over the weekend, but the council was discussing lobbying the state legislature to institute some sort of tax on alcohol use.

Current proposals include a per-drink tax or a tax on liquor sales, he said.