<p>Hokie parents thus far have been "kept in the dark" in regards to the binge drinking parties which are very common place at the apartment complexes around tech. Tech itself has launched an alcohol abuse prevention campaign, but thus far they are getting very little in the way of cooperation from the apartment owners and property managers around Virginia Tech. </p>
<p>Several security companies have been actively soliciting business from these apartment complexes, and the Virginia Tech alcohol abuse prevention center has also reached out to address the issue with them, but to no avail. </p>
<p>Unfortunately the prevailing line of thought on the part of the property managers appears to be "if we clamp down on the drinking, we will lose revenue." So instead, the problem persists and remains Blacksburg's "Dirty little secret."</p>
<p>A college town where people drink? Shocking.</p>
<p>edit: Those articles seem to mostly revolve around drinking and driving, which isn’t that much of a problem since all of the major apartment complexes are serviced by busses till around 2am on weekends. Also, drinking, binge or not, is not illegal, so unless you honestly want or expect apartments to allow these security companies to go into private residences and begin checking IDs and breathalyzing people I don’t know what you want them to do.</p>
<p>I want the property managers to acknowledge that allowing binge drinking parties at their complexes puts community members at risk! The party-goers are engaged in “pre-gaming”, ie: getting tanked up at the parties before going bar hopping (to keep the higher priced bar tabs down). Intoxicated students vomiting in the streets and driving drunk has become an all too prevalent problem. Property managers could have on-site security and have these parties shut down before they get out of control. Some drinking around college based towns is understandable, but Blacksburg has gone way beyond that and is now a “drinking town with a football problem.”</p>
<p>You’re overstating the problem. I’ve spent time at and around a few larger college towns and VT is somewhere in the middle of the pack when it comes to drinking. Even if allowing binge drinking parties at their complex does put community members at risk it still isn’t illegal, so I still don’t know what you think extra security would do.</p>
<p>You specifically mention pregaming as a problem. Pregame drinking generally is not at the large parties that extra security would catch. It is in smaller, quieter groups that there would be no excuse to bust up. Also, if they are going bar hopping afterwards presumably the party goers are over 21 and are not committing a crime at any point in the night, so any harassment from security would be unwarranted.</p>
<p>You also say that drunk driving and vomiting in the streets is an ‘all too prevalent problem.’ Are there any statistics that show that Blacksburg is any worse than any other large college town in drunk driving? Also, in my three years of party-going I’ve only witnessed throwing up in the streets a handfull of times, and to my knowledge they’ve all been at bus stops.</p>
<p>At any rate, these parties are happening in private residences, and if there are no noise complaints no security company would have the right to enter the private residence. Any apartment that made people agree that a private security company could enter their apartment on the suspicion of heavy drinking, which again is not illegal, would lose business and rightfully so. We are not a nanny state. If you want to curb drinking problems the only real ways to do it off the top of my head would either be to extend bus hours on weekends by a half hour or hour and extend them on Thursdays, or through education.</p>
<p>I can’t open PDFs where I am right now so I can’t read the first link. The second doesn’t seem to support your argument much at all unless you think we should lower the drinking age, aside from one line buried at the bottom of the article that still doesn’t give any numbers. It’s irrelevant anyway, since you still haven’t told me on what grounds security would be entering private residences at a party before it got out of control. </p>
<p>Is there problem drinking at VT? Absolutely. Is a private security company policing the apartment complexes busting up under control parties the answer? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>Honest question, do you stand to profit from security companies working the apartments or are you just a concerned citizen?</p>
<p>Follow the dollar eh? Ok… do you work for one of the property management companies and you’re trying to save a dollar by not addressing the problem?</p>
<p>Look, I don’t care who they hire or if they even use their own people. No, I don’t work for a security company… I just want the situation addressed so that my wife or any other innocent bystander to wind up in a major car wreck caused by a bunch of drunk VT students.</p>
<p>The hope in posting the inital message was to reach out to the parents… not to get in a posting contest with Chuy (by the way, I did a search on that user names posts, and I’m beginning to gather he attends these parties).</p>
<p>Parents: If you are paying for your childrens off campus housing, you need to know what really goes on around tech in these apartment complexes on the weekends! Don’t take my word for it, get yourself a motel room during a football season weekend and do a little driving around for yourself. A word to the wise though, make sure your car insurance is in order and be sure to wear your seatbelt!</p>
<p>Guess what?? Binge drinking isn’t the tip of the iceberg. Someone so aghast to hear that college students are getting wasted on booze before football games would probably die if they knew the true extent of what college kids are getting into.</p>
<p>I was asking because you only seem to see one solution to the problem, and you don’t seem to want to address the problems that come along with having the security companies busting into private residences. I didn’t say you did work for one, I simply asked, since if you did it would be pointless to argue about any other solutions.</p>
<p>The truth is if you’re living in a college town you’re going to have to accept that there will be drinking around you. For many students it is legal and for all students it is accepted, and nothing is going to change that. I of course hope that neither you nor your family, or anyone else for that matter, gets into a wreck with a drunken driver. What I’m saying is that there are better ways to approach the problem than security companies, and that security companies policing the apartment complexes isn’t feasible.</p>
<p>I don’t really consider this to be a contest, just a discussion. Or debate, though you don’t seem to be into addressing concerns or points that I make. Why do you expect people to listen to what you’re saying when you won’t listen to another side of an argument? And yes, I do go to and even host (occasionally) “these parties.” If I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to speak with as much experience on the issue. When I host we do try to make sure nobody drives drunk, but it’s usually a moot point since there is not enough guest parking at my complex, especially on weekends, for anyone to drive to the party in the first place. We do try to clear out everyone who doesn’t live in the same complex to leave by the last bus though. If you’re suggesting that attending those parties somehow weakens anything I’ve said I don’t think you’ll find many that agree with you.</p>
<p>The ironic thing is that you seem more concerned with the people who live at the complexes when it comes to drunken driving. Those are the people who AREN’T doing it, since they’re already there. The drunk drivers are the ones who are going to the complex from somewhere else. So putting your kid in off campus housing, if anything, may increase the odds that they drink more but will decrease the odds that they drive drunk.</p>
<p>Also, good luck getting a motel during a football season weekend, which isn’t exactly representative of the rest of the year, since they only happen 6 times a year.</p>
<p>edit: And no, I don’t work for an apartment complex or anything related to one. I’m a student at VT. I’d like to not die as much as you.</p>
<p>“The ironic thing is that you seem more concerned with the people who live at the complexes when it comes to drunken driving. Those are the people who AREN’T doing it, since they’re already there. The drunk drivers are the ones who are going to the complex from somewhere else. So putting your kid in off campus housing, if anything, may increase the odds that they drink more but will decrease the odds that they drive drunk”</p>
<p>From what I understand many students come from ON campus to attend the parties, and then go bar hopping… regardless, the people who reside at the complex and attend (or host) the parties most certainly ARE contibuting to the problem… either by hosting the party, drinking at the party, and going out into the community (beer runs, bar hops, whatever). For you to state that putting your kid in off campus housing in Blacksburg, decreases the odds they drive drunk (or will be exposed to drunk drivers) when there is an acknowledged VT drinking problem is absurd.</p>
<p>Not many people that live on campus are over 21 so they they don’t really barhop much. Yeah, a few people have fake IDs but I think if you’ve gone that far there isn’t much anybody is going to do to stop you. The point I’m trying to make is that these parties are not illegal, and you’ve never said what you want to be done other than “clamping down.” Sobriety checkpoints are probably the best answer, and the apartment complexes can’t do that.</p>
<p>I don’t see how someone choosing to attend a (perfectly legal) party that they can walk or ride a bus to contributes to drunken driving. They’re conciously making a decision to avoid being in a car that an intoxicated person, themselves or someone else, is driving. So what is the problem with that? If you want to stop drunk people from going and buying more beer then the aforementioned sobriety checkpoints are the only real way to do that, since it is perfectly legal for a sober person to get in a car at midnight and make a kroger run. Most places I’ve been have someone stay sober until they get an idea of how many people are going to be there so they can make a beer run later in the night and not come up short or have a lot left over.</p>
<p>Explain to me how someone living within walking distance of the parties that they are attending anyway increases the odds that they’ll drive drunk.</p>
<p>edit: I’d have 0 problem with sobriety checkpoints, by the way.</p>
<p>"I’d have 0 problem with sobriety checkpoints, by the way. "</p>
<p>Why is it you DO seem to have a problem with someone, be it apartment complex management, security, or whatever… breaking up parties that have gotten out of control and far too big? No one ever expressed a problem with small get togethers and some friends having a beer… the issue at hand is binge drinking problems… you know, where the parties are so large that everyone can’t fit in the apartment, and they are merrily urinating on the side of the building…</p>
<p>You keep changing what you’re saying the problem is though. At first you just said “binge drinking parties.” The amount of alcohol consumed per person has little to do with how big the party is. In fact, people doing stupid things like Power Hours is far more common at smaller parties than the huge ones you can hardly move around in. </p>
<p>Next you redefined the problem as people pregaming and driving drunk. While some do go to the larger parties and then go out to bars, it is far more common for people to either drink with a couple friends before going to a bar, and even those people generally take the bus. You even said, in direct contradiction to the last post, that you wanted the parties broken up BEFORE they got out of control. The police already do break up parties that get too big, and apartment complexes already have courtesy officers that make people leave if parties are getting too loud or big and there are complaints.</p>
<p>Then you said you were warning people about letting their kids live off campus, while you’ve never made any argument supporting that living off campus and within walking distance of parties that they would attend anyway increases the odds that someone will drive drunk. </p>
<p>You seem to be equating binge drinking with large parties, but it occurs as much if not more at the smaller parties that the extra security that you think is necessary would never break up. You’re right, we should try to cut down on drunk driving, but the way you want to do it is ineffective to do any more than they already do. And I don’t have a problem with the police coming and breaking up parties that are out of control, I have a problem with a private security firm doing so or either of them breaking up something, and I quote you here</p>
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<p>You can’t punish people for what you think they might do.</p>
<p>The police already do break up parties that get too big, and apartment complexes already have courtesy officers that make people leave if parties are getting too loud or big and there are complaints.</p>
<p>That’s a laugh</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The police are overwhelmed by the sheer number and the sizes of the parties. Until recently they were under pressure to look the other way in most of the occurances as well. Luckily tech’s political view of this is changing…</p></li>
<li><p>Courtesy patrol? You mean like at the Village of Blacksburg where the courtesy patrol officers are so named because the Village doesn’t want to use the term security, as that would acknowledge that a problem even exists? The same Village of Blacksburg where the “courtesy patrol” is primarily made up of tech students getting a reduction in rent for being volunteer members of the “patrol” and the group who from what I understand are known to join in and visit the parties?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>1) Then try to get more police on duty at the times there are a problem. </p>
<p>2) Yes, like those. I know for a fact that they will come by if a party is too big (if there are people out on the balcony) and tell you that you either have to have a certain number of people leave or they will call the police.</p>
<p>I am an incoming student, and BTW I do not drink, not a sip- no alcohol at all. </p>
<p>Drunk driving is a major concern for me too, but I am certain the problem extends to more than the local college campus. Also, as Chuy said, the buses run into the early morning, and at least they have the bus system there. In larger areas there is no bus system like that, so a lot of people end up either getting tanked or buzzed and driving. </p>
<p>Your first concern seemed to be large drinking parties that need to be shut down- now you appear to be attacking a different concern- drunk driving. </p>
<p>I say if kids are partying inside somewhere, great- at least their not out driving while drunk. </p>
<p>Drivig drunk is a serious concern- but large parties- ehhh not so much</p>
<p>its college, people drink, get over it. VT doesnt really want to stop this either, if they did and they really cracked down on partying not as many people would go to tech, i guarantee it. People, whether you think its right or not, consider in their college decisions on how good the partying is. Tech doesn’t want to lose business, so this is ■■■■■■■■…</p>
<p>If people didn’t make alcohol a big deal, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. Think about it. Please see: prohibition or “why European teens drink less/have less alcohol related deaths than Americans, yet they can drink at age 16”. I personally find binge drinking fun and will be doing it tomorrow :). If you are the type of parent that likes to shelter your kid then I’d like to recommend a community college. This thread is ridiculous.</p>