Poly Royal
Fubar
I'm sure that sooner or later everyone will be hearing about
the war zone that San Luis Obispo became this weekend as a
result of Poly Royal.
As a Cal Poly student, I feel that before the anything is
discussed about the incidents, I would like to make a few
observations and perhaps get some imput from the net.
Every year Cal Poly has Poly Royal. For those who are not
familliar with it, it is the largets university open house
in the nation. On the average, over 125,000 people come to
San Luis Obispo to take part in the festivities. The parties
associated with this occasion are looked forward to all year
by those who will participate.
This year, the parties began on Thursday. They usually run
from Thursday night (as Poly Royal begins on Friday) to
Saturday night. Last year, there was one incident on Friday
night where a group of students had a run in with the police
in a housing development. Rocks were thrown. They thought it
was bad last year, but a big deal wasn't made of it.
This year, there were full-blown riots on all three nights.
From Greg Junell, about the events of Saturday Night:
My roommates, Bill and Steve, and guest, Ed, watched the riot
last night for a few hours. The hord broke stop lights, rail
road crossing gates, burned stuff in a dumpster, burned a palm
accidentally with the dumpster, and fleeing down foothill they
broke a lot of windows. There were a lot of cars damaged.
Then the police marched slowly down grand from the HP station.
100 blues in full riot gear followed by squad cars, followed
by a firetruck.
Most folks bailed at this point, but the core stayed and
receive that Number One Small Town in America welcome, the
tear gas. For once I side witht the cops. Those folks were
looking for trouble.
Today, Idzerda drove my sister and I to campus. Repair was
going on to the RR crossing, new street lights (walk lights
still out). Small trees on campus were broken at the ground.
From Andy Pippin, about the events of Thursday Night:
For those of you who were here last year, I'm sure that you
all remember the little fiasco that happened over in Cedar
Creek condo's. Notice the previous subject line? Yep...
Another riot.
About midnight, I had come home and was trying to go to bed.
There were about 500 people roaming around on Murray Street,
right in front of Murray Street Station and the adjoining
court (MY court). Well, Mister Policeman arrived and tried
to establish some control on the situation.
I think it was some out-of-town dickweed with penis-envy
decided to start some shit. So what does he do? He threw
a bottle at the cops. Idiot.
Well the cops called in reinforcements. You know the kind,
helmets with visors and some big-ass billy clubs. They tried
to "disperse" the crowd with threats of "unlawful assembly
by order of the State of California's penal code blah-blah-blah."
Chants of "Bullshit! Bullshit!" came from the crowd. Then
some more (probably) out-of-town shitbrains decided that
bottle throwing was so much fun and tossed another few towards
the police line's general direction. This is when I realized
something was up because some of our pledges came running full
tilt into out house. They knew what was going to happen next...
Mr. Po-po decided that they were not going to be stationary
targets for these idiots and decided to mobilize. Right towards
the bottle-throwing dickheads. At a run. You've probably seen
film clips of cops beating the shit out of people. It is real
wierd to watch it not more than 100 feet away. I'm NOT blaming
cops. I'm surprised that they showed restraint as long as they
did. After the third or fourth volley of bottles, I would have
charged.
At any rate, by 12:45 they were reduced to giving Notice to
Appear citations for MIP (Minor in Possesion) and Possesion of
Alcohol in public. I think the reason that they didn't arrest
them was first, they were more curteous (sp?), and second, there
wasn't any room left in their cars.
This was Thursday night. There are two more nights to go.
Let me stage a question for you. Should we stop Poly Royal?
This is the second year that this has happened. In comparison,
let's look at Santa Barbara and their Holloween on DP. They
finally realized that it was just to out-of-hand and really
started cracking down on it.
Should we do the same at Poly Royal. I think of the city's
condition that the liquors stores and alcohol distributors not
advertize nor even use the words "Party Royale" in any advertizement.
They though it would prevent this situation again.
Once again, they seem to have their collective heads buried up
their asses. Does any of you activ(ists) have any thoughts?
So now there are thoughts of stopping Poly Royal alltogether. While I do
not agree with this view, I do feel that something needs to be done. Here
are a few suggestions from Greg:
Solutions to the riot problem we tossed around this morning :
(some real, some :-)
I. Fire up about 1000 pounds of pot and use those movie set
fans to blow it over the crowd.
II. All night concerts in the stadium every night.
III. Follow Santa Barbara and mail all the other schools with
ugly messages, "Don't show up!"
IV. Get rid of all the frats and sororities.
V. Stop selling beer at midnight or sooner.
III refers to what UCSB has done in the past about their halloween situation
in Isla Vista.
So what I ask of the net... what solutions do you see for this problem? How
would you handle it if you were in a position to make a decision?
I do NOT want to see Poly Royal end. Personally, I enjoy the events. This year,
the Computer Science department took first place for the Engineering Dept. I
worked on a Star Ship simulator that clinched the prize, and I plan to continue
work to make it even better for next year. I don't want to see that work go for
nothing.
--
Sig: ++Christopher(); | Fubar Systems BBS
Internet: cam...@polyslo.calpoly.edu | (805) 544-9234 3/12/24 8-N-1
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