Earlier this week, the State College Police Department sent out a letter to all rental property owners in State College with suggestions and guidelines for State Patty’s Day this weekend. Owners and managers have since sent out the letter to their residents, but some are taking even further measures to ensure the historically destructive weekend goes smoothly.
The Apartment Store, which manages 35 apartment buildings and houses in State College, will have a “party patrol” throughout all its apartment buildings, employee Charlotte Molenaar said.
All of the staff for the realty group will be monitoring their major buildings Saturday, as well as Friday, to “make sure everything’s quiet and not going crazy,” Molenaar said.
The Apartment Store has also hired additional security guards to be on patrol for some of the larger buildings like The Palmerton, 316 W. Beaver Ave., and the Armenara Building, 131 Sowers St., she said.
While the realty group encourages residents to register their parties all the time, they have seen an increase in the number of registered parties for this weekend, she said. Molenaar could not confirm the number of registered parties for this weekend.
In terms of policy and fines, they haven’t changed much for this particular weekend, she said.
“If there’s anything we see that we don’t like, we’re going to call the police,” Molenaar said.
Molenaar also said that they had not received any complaints from residents and that The Apartment Store’s main priority is for everyone to stay safe and abide by the law.
Associated Realty Property Management, which manages several other apartment buildings downtown, is not concerned with the vandalism and damages as much as it is concerned with guests coming from out of town, Property Manager Kristen Holzwarth said.
“We just want to make sure that the guests are safe and the tenants are safe,” Holzwarth said. “We hope they act responsible.”
Similar to football weekends during the fall, ARPM will have additional guards on duty to provide extra security in their buildings, Holzwarth said. The amount of guards per building depends on the size of the building, she said.
ARPM will not institute any other additional policies for all their properties this weekend, but hope that residents realize they are responsible for their guests who come and stay with them. While ARPM does not institute an overall rule for limiting guests, Holzwarth said residents should keep in mind that some of their buildings have guest policies all year.
Most of ARPM’s properties also have surveillance cameras for security purposes, she said.
For realty group Westside Village, any warning or fine issued by the State College borough or police over the weekend will automatically result in an additional $100 fine, Property Manager Jessica Aikey said.
Aikey said the borough would typically send a notice to Westside Village letting them know which apartments received a warning or fine. The apartments that are on that list this weekend will automatically get the fine from Westside Village, too.
While violators will be penalized, Westside Village will still allow parties this weekend, Aikey said. They also do not have limits on the number of guests allowed.
“I’m not here to babysit them,” Aikey said.
Aikey also said she and the maintenance staff will be patrolling the properties and looking for any violations. She said she will also probably drive around the properties Friday night and call police if there are any violations.
Falk Realty, on the other hand, has not changed its policies for State Patty’s Day and does not anticipate many problems for their properties, employee Frank Johnson said.
Johnson said that many of their properties are not directly downtown and most of their residents are typically graduate students, which leads them to believe they won’t have as many problems as downtown apartment complexes.
After extensive property damage on State Patty’s Day last year, the Meridian Apartments, 646 College Ave., banned parties for the remainder of the spring 2012 semester, as previously reported.
This year, the Meridians will be included in the list of downtown apartments looking to minimize the negative effects of the student-created holiday, though they would not provide comment on the details of their policies.
In a letter obtained by The Daily Collegian, Calder Commons, 520 E. Calder Way, which is owned by the same realty group as the Meridian Apartments, and GN Associates, wrote that all parties are suspended in the apartment building from Friday through Sunday. Calder Commons declined comment for this article.
According to the letter, any tenant in violation of the no-party rule over the weekend in Calder Commons will be fined $200. According to the letter, no tenants may have double their occupancy in their apartment or kegs in their apartment.
Calder Commons will have uniformed and non-uniformed police officers patrolling the halls during the weekend, according to the letter.
Continental Real Estate Management also did not return repeated calls for comment.
Tonight and Saturday, Penn State Residence Life has limited overnight guests to one per resident room in an effort to reduce the number of guests in residence halls during State Patty’s Day weekend.
“Because of the negative behavior that has existed over the course of this weekend, and to discourage guests that are here for the sole purpose of the State Patty’s Day event, Residence Life is revising the overnight guest policy,” Residence Life wrote in a notice via Stall Stories, confirmed by Senior Director Diane Andrews.
According to the notice, if a student is caught hosting more than one guest, he or she will receive a violation and will have to meet with the building coordinator. Also, the guest(s) may be asked to leave.
But, regardless of the penalties, some students said they expect people will break the rules.
“Many students will defy the new rule anyway,” Cassandra Rullman (freshman-biobehavioral health) said. “Are my roommate and I supposed to rock-paper-scissors-shoot for who gets the guest?”
And Brad Bortner (sophomore-business) — who lived in on-campus housing last year — said he knows people broke the rule last year, as they had more than one guest per room. He added that it’s likely the same thing will happen this year.
Yet, some students, such as Ariana Cali, said the revised policy is “reasonable” for an event that draws such a large non-resident crowd.
“If my roommate and I both wanted a guest to stay for the weekend, we could work around it and have them stay with someone who doesn’t have a guest,” Cali (freshman-civil engineering) said. “It’s not a permanent thing; it’s only one weekend.”
Cali added that she does not think many people will host guests this weekend because of the possible consequences.
