Angered by a local increase in college parties, concerned Columbia citizens collaborated with Columbia City Council members in 2006 to create a law that would place limits on the amount of social gatherings, known as nuisance parties, that college students could have in residential neighborhoods. The resulting ordinance has sparked a recent trend in Missouri college towns that are also trying to cut down on college parties.
“Several neighborhood groups were concerned about the problems associated with parties in their neighborhood,” Columbia Police Department officer Tim Thomason said. “They felt that current ordinances and fines were not a deterrence for the parties that were causing problems.”
Originally passed to ease tension in East Campus neighborhood, the law has caught on statewide and is currently being reviewed by Southeast Missouri State University as a possible measure.
The ordinance defines a nuisance party as a social event that includes more than 10 people and draws enough attention to warrant police intervention. Police can break up the gathering if any one of 11 illegally prohibited activities is going on at the party, including fighting, possession of alcohol or trespassing.
“Neighborhood groups formed together and contacted City Council,” Thomason said. “The Mayor and Council eventually requested a community committee be put together to evaluate the problem and come up with a solution. Their solution was the nuisance party ordinance.”
Thomason also said he feels that the ordinance has greatly reduced party sizes in Columbia.
“In the past, it was not uncommon for the police to respond to parties involving hundreds of people causing numerous violations and problems for the neighborhood,” he said. “Those problems turned into greater chance for officer injury and increased time spent on party cases.”
City Counselor Fred Boeckmann was involved when the law was originally passed and worked with a citizens group to help develop the ordinance.
“There have been certain problems in every college town in America,” Boeckmann said. “Noise is a common issue when you have students who tend to be a little bit louder than old people, and there’s going to be a certain amount of friction.”
According to Thomason, the ordinance has made large parties consisting of more than 100 people rare. In the past year, there have been three instances where an officer has broken up a party of 100 or more people, down from the average of the previous five years.
“It is even more rare that we have to respond either back to the same address again in the future or even deal with the same person for another nuisance party,” he said.
According to CPD, there have been 388 disturbance complaints since the law passed in 2006. The ordinance has evolved to include prohibiting large gatherings of people watching fireworks if foul play is at hand.
“It’s my impression that it has gone a long way to improve a lot of our neighborhoods that in the past experienced issues from noise violations to property violations, weed violations and things of that nature that really have degraded the quality of life for residents living in certain neighborhoods throughout the city,” Assistant City Manager Tony St. Romaine said.
Now, neighboring cities are taking notice of the improved Columbia neighborhoods.
“Over the last year, we have had request from other cities for copies of our ordinance,” St. Romaine said. “I don’t know if ours is by any means a model ordinance but it has had some potential benefits in various areas that were experiencing difficulties.”
Although Columbia was the first college town in the state to pass such an ordinance, Boeckmann is quick to point out that the law is not the first of its kind.
“I don’t think Columbia is necessarily unique,” Boeckman said. “When we drafted this ordinance, we looked at ordinances from different places in the country. We didn’t reinvent the wheel here.”