For many of its young residents, Isla Vista is the college
partygoer’s dream. But for the local sheriff’s
department, it is a security nightmare.
Isla Vista, a primary residential area for the University of
California, Santa Barbara, is known for open parties that allow for
easy access to alcohol. People often loiter in the streets,
creating problems for local law enforcement such as public drunken
behavior, violence and sexual assaults.
In an attempt to curb these alcohol-associated problems, the
Department for Alcoholic Beverage Control gave the Isla Vista
Sheriff’s Department a grant to start cracking down on
excessive partying.
“People come to Isla Vista because it is known as an open
party town,” said Lt. Tom McKinny of IVSD.
“That’s the reputation that we’re trying to
change.”
Isla Vista is a condensed community of mostly college students.
The majority of the parties occur on one street, Del Playa
Drive.
Though partying itself does not make Isla Vista unique, the easy
access to parties makes it a popular location for students beyond
UCSB and Santa Barbara City College, the other college in the
area.
Jason Scott, a first-year microbiology, immunology and molecular
genetics student at UCLA, said he travels to Isla Vista three or
four times per year.
“The parties there are 100,000 times better ““ these
(UCLA) parties suck,” Scott said. “There you walk in if
the door’s open. Here you have to know eight people from the
frat. There are definitely more people there because it’s
more accessible and alcohol is easier to get a hold of.”
It is specifically this accessibility that law enforcement
officials are trying to eliminate. Much of the $50,000 in grant
money the sheriff’s department received from the Department
for Alcoholic Beverage Control is going toward increasing funds for
overtime pay for deputies to monitor sales at liquor stores,
markets and restaurants. Another portion of the money is aimed at
training officers and store employees in how to identify fake
identification cards.
“There are a lot of factors to the problem, and easy
availability is one of the major factors,” McKinny said.
“Another part of the problem is large open
parties.”
An average weekend at Isla Vista may include a dozen fights, a
dozen citations for public intoxication, 20 to 30 offenses for
minors in possession of alcohol and about 30 citations for having
open containers of alcohol in public, McKinny said.
Jerry Jolly, Director of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said his
program is supposed to help end problems with underage and binge
drinking. The local law enforcement and UCSB are supposed to work
together to implement both educational programs for students as
well as increased enforcement.
Jolly said another program, similar to that at UCSB, will soon
be started at UCLA. It will likely be funded by another grant from
the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
“At any university with young people, you are going to see
a problem with binge drinking and underage drinking,” Jolly
said. “Our goal is to take as much of the risk out of binge
drinking, and make it safe on the campuses.”
Adjmal Nessary, a first-year business economics student at UCSB,
said he has noticed an increase in police presence in Isla Vista
since January.
“There are a lot more cops walking around,” Nessary
said. “It limits the craziness. They don’t really break
up parties.”
But McKinny said law enforcement will start going into open-
door parties to try to regulate underage drinking and the resulting
problems.
Scott said it is pretty easy for minors to obtain alcohol but
when police start cracking down on the providers, it may help curb
the partying.
“If people over 21 get in more trouble, if you put it on
their back that they have to be in charge and make sure that
everyone there is over 21, it would at least make them more afraid
and more likely to take responsibility,” Scott said.
If the students providing the alcohol also monitor consumption,
the open-door parties may cease to exist. This will limit outsider
access, loitering and other problems ““ at least that is the
hope of law enforcement officials.
“We’re not going to ask students not to drink
anymore,” Jolly said. “We just want to make sure liquor
laws are enforced.”