Durham police issued five citations to students early Sunday morning for violating the City Noise Ordinance at their residences off East Campus. The citations, which came with a $150 fine for each recipient, left hosts and partygoers alike bewildered by what they said was an unfair blanket policy from the Durham Police Department.
The citations came just two weekends after neighbors' complaints of excessive unruliness led Durham police to announce a zero-tolerance policy for students hosting off-campus parties. Now, however, students say they are being targeted by the police when their neighbors have not even called in complaints.
"I don't think any of the neighbors called the police, and that's why we were so frustrated when the police just showed up," said Lucy Wood, one of the students who received a citation for a party hosted at her Watts Street apartment. "We received no warnings, and everyone who was there agreed that the noise was at a reasonable level. We felt slighted by the entire situation."
Wood added that although people were drinking at the party, which one roommate estimated to include 50 to 75 people, everyone was of legal drinking age and no one was causing any trouble.
Officials from DPD could not be reached for comment about the weekend citations.
Christine Mullis, one of Wood's roommates, said police were in the neighborhood investigating a nearby car accident when they noticed about 10 people sitting on the stoop of their apartment building. One officer explained they had been ordered to issue citations if they noticed any loud music or gathered cars at students' residences, Mullis said.
"The cops told us that no one had called and complained, but they had to write a citation, no matter what," she added. Mullis was not one of the two residents to receive a citation from the Watts Street residence.
Durham police issued three more citations to students living not far from the Watts Street apartment complex. Andrew Salenger, who received a citation for excessive noise at his house on Onslow Street, said he was upset by what he said was an unjustified response to Saturday night's party.
"I talked directly with a police officer who said it came down from up high that Durham cops had to come in and break up the Duke parties," Salenger said. "When we saw the cops, we cracked down on the party immediately, but they still wanted to get us in trouble."
Salenger added that he and other residents of the Onslow Street house now have serious apprehensions about hosting any gatherings at all in the future.
"The cop said that if he has to come back, they're going to have to bring us all to jail," Salenger said. "I don't fault the individual police officers because they're under orders to go through and systematically break the parties down. But still, the people in my house have no plans of having another party in the future, which is kind of unfair."
Mary Peavey, a junior who saw the police pull up to the house as she was leaving the party, said she thought the citations were unwarranted.
"I don't recall there being loud music. You could tell there was a party going on, but I don't think it was excessive," Peavey said. She added that, even before the police arrived, the party's hosts had been trying to get people inside and off the porch.
"Before I left, they had probably gotten about half the people off the porch and no one was really in the yard unless they were just walking up," she said.
The students' neighbors on Watts Street and Onslow Street were not available to comment on Saturday night's parties.
Many of those who received citations over the weekend expressed a desire for clearer communication between students and University and DPD authorities.
"There's no standard of how much noise is too much noise, so there's no way for us to know if we were being too loud," said Elizabeth Brookhiser, one of the students who was cited at the Watts Street apartment. "If there was no warning, and no one had to complain, is this saying that we're not allowed to have gatherings of any kind?"
Parker Bell, who also lives in the Watts Street apartment but was not issued a citation, said the University's administration was sending mixed signals about what it expected from its students living off campus.
"[Vice President for Student Affairs Larry] Moneta said [in The Chronicle] he wanted to encourage students to have smaller gatherings. This was definitely a smaller gathering. We knew everyone there, yet two of my roommates still got citations," she said.
The five citations were issued by Durham police around 1 a.m. Sept. 7. Those cited were Brookhiser and Lucy Wood of 603 Watts Street and Michael Amodeo, Salenger and Justin Strader of 830 Onslow Street.
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