Ups and Downs
The city manages to blame the recent club brawling epidemic in downtown Ann Arbor on drunk college students - even though, as far as we know, there’s been no report that U of M students were involved, and all three incidents happened during the summer. “In a college town like this, we kind of anticipate we’re going to have ups and downs,” city administrator Roger Fraser told the Free Press. “Officials said some trouble can be expected when young people drink,” the Freep reported. One of the fights broke out at “a special non-alcohol teen night” for high schoolers.
So, one “riot” happened at a high school gathering and another at the Firerfly Club (avg. age = 234)?
Looks like some more great about “college” kids.
posted by Leighton on July 30th, 2004 at 3:38 pmAt least he didn’t say it was Michigan State or Eastern Michigan students (another tactic). But last I checked, Pioneer was not a college.
posted by Kozzie on July 30th, 2004 at 4:02 pmActually, it was The Bird of Paradise, another at Studio 4 (a private party) and yes, the last at Touchdowns’ teen night.
posted by Brandon on July 30th, 2004 at 5:22 pmEven at Michigan State, the worst incidents always involved nonstudents.
What happened was that downtown East Lansing, with its many bars and night clubs, became the drinking and entertainment mecca for the whole region. Or, specifically, the underage drinking mecca.
I remember a downtown East Lansing automobile accident where the driver turned out to be unlicensed — a 14 year old girl. She was driving because her 13 year old boyfriend was too drunk. No kidding. Needless to say, neither one was an MSU student, or even from East Lansing.
A crackdown followed which put a number of bars out of business. But East Lansing is a far more violent place today than it was when I lived there, and not because of MSU students.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on July 30th, 2004 at 5:32 pmYou’re right about the “entertainment mecca” (sadly enough) and I guess Fraser could have even meant that a college town attracts nonstudents who take part in these incidents.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 30th, 2004 at 5:59 pmEvery college student worth his weight knows the best place to score some tail is at non-alcoholic teen nights. Mmmmmmm. Fruit punch.
posted by Eric on July 30th, 2004 at 7:28 pmThis past week’s closing of Ron Brooks’ Bird of Paradise, reduces by one the number of groovy jazz joints in Ann Arbor that have generated riots in the last year . . . Ron Brooks is, from what I gather, a great bass player and a not so great businessman/landlord. He owned a rental property across the street from me, which sold six months ago to some people who actually want to live there, and they quickly realized that they needed more than just their kitchen cleaned. For the last six months contractors have been methodically gutting and re-building the insides from scratch.
Which reminds me: I can’t believe that since Tuesday nobody has posted an offer to clean your kitchen . . . doesn’t anybody who reads this blog need a little extra cash? . . . speaking of which, how much cash would you consider to be fair compensation for a kitchen cleaning?
posted by Homeless Dave on July 30th, 2004 at 11:33 pmAs most of the students that don’t live in Ann Arbor don’t know, the whole crowd on South University changes its dynamic during the summer.
How many people here remember when Pinball Pete’s had a security force and surveillance cameras? How many remember when the same arcade was also a mecca for everything from marijuana to cocaine and you couldn’t be caught dead in there without a knife or other weapon (no pun intended)?
Honestly, the students do cause their fair share of violence, but definitely 1) not in the summer and 2) not downtown, but rather at fraternity houses or dorms. I’ve luckily been able to keep myself from any confrontations this summer, but I have had many over the Winter semester ranging from being confronted by drunk frat guys with a stun gun to a near-brawl in Pinball Pete’s when - guess what - a high schooler decided to take a pool cue to me before I advised him that swinging at me with it would be a bad idea.
If our police can’t, uh, police the kids/non-college-students in Ann Arbor then what would this city be like if all the students were more violent? After having a few incidents as stated above ( had way more, too, that i’m not getting into), with no police coverage whatsoever (the one time I *did* have to call the police was for drunk guys trying to kick in the door of my friend’s apartment) they didn’t show up for an hour and a half and when we told them, they said it would be best not to cause more trouble by confronting them and filing a police report. It really makes you feel safe, you know? That’s why I’ve decided that I’d feel safer if I took martial arts classes and began to carry a knife of my own (within the borders of legality).
posted by eston on July 31st, 2004 at 1:32 pmi can’t believe this little nugget hasn’t been unearthed yet:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126717,00.html
posted by jeremy on July 31st, 2004 at 3:20 pmDespite all this local violence I somehow had to go all the way to charming Saugatuck to get assaulted last weekend. Maybe I just need to hang around jazz clubs and teen nights in these parts.
posted by Brandon on July 31st, 2004 at 7:39 pmYeah, and Ann Arbor just had its first murder in over a year, near where I live. It’s like, the first murder in probably ten years out here, and of course, both the victim and the suspect were banned from the property with warrents out for their arrests.
posted by js on August 2nd, 2004 at 11:12 amNow we’ve gotta have a special “town meeting” where hopefully people will be told that thuggish bullshit is simply not acceptable, and that the people who were the hosts to these two will be evicted…
It’s not the first murder in 10 years. About 5 years ago, a guy I used work with was murdered in the apartments over by Jackson and Maple. But murders are very rare in Ann Arbor (at least).
posted by Kozzie on August 2nd, 2004 at 11:28 amI didn’t mean to suggest that college students are never violent. When I was a grad student at Cornell, there was an incident, in a car, which involved two undergrads, one from Cornell and one from Ithaca College, both drunk; they had some kind of disagreement, and one of them beat the other to death.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on August 2nd, 2004 at 2:16 pmNo, first murder in 10 years in Arrowwood. There are murders in the rest of the city, about one a year (aside from 2001-2002, when there werern’t any in the city).
posted by js on August 2nd, 2004 at 3:19 pmjs
Oh — nevermind my comments in the later thread about Arrowood — I didn’t read this first.
posted by Anna on August 4th, 2004 at 3:29 pm