The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Santa Barbara police are cracking down on visitors in Isla Vista on Halloween weekend. The largely student-populated area next to the university is a top destination for students from Cal Poly and all around California looking to party throughout the year, and with Halloween hitting on a Saturday this year, local authorities are expecting about 40,000 to 50,000 people to be in Isla Vista.
Over 250 officers will be patrolling Isla Vista throughout the holiday weekend, Isla Vista Foot Patrol Lt. Braid Olmstead said at a forum on Oct. 20 hosted by Keep It Safe, a UCSB Associated Students campaign for Halloween weekend. Police officers from Santa Barbara, most of the UC campuses, San Luis Obispo and others as far away as San Diego are coming to help keep the party under control.
“Last time we did 250 arrests and over 600 citations for alcohol citations,” Olmstead said in a Daily Nexus article about the forum. “I would love to see that statistic go down. I would like it to be a local event rather than an out-of-towner event; the out-of-towners do not respect Isla Vista.”
UCSB Associated Students Vice President of Local Affairs Clayton Carson said that nine out of 10 ticket-able offenses in Isla Vista are given to visitors during holiday weekends.
Carson, an environmental studies senior, also said that although Keep It Safe is trying to prevent visitors from coming, it is also trying to help visitors know what is going on in an unfamiliar town and inform them on local laws and ordinances.
“It’s amazing that we have to do this to prevent people from going off a cliff or getting alcohol poisoning,” Carson said. “We’re spending millions of dollars just to cover our asses, but we have to make it safe.”
Carson said that Associated Students and local authorities have had to look at previous events like this once to create a plan of action since Halloween has not fallen on a Saturday since 1998. For the first time, Carson’s office is creating a 10-year long-term plan to deal with party weekends with local authorities.
“Isla Vista has that draw of being a party town,” Carson said. “Police haven’t figured out how to shut it down, so we have to keep people safe.”
According to Carson, many students leave the area during holiday weekends in order to avoid the influx of visitors and police blockades. Locals also like to point unwitting out-of-towners in the wrong direction when they ask where Del Playa Drive, Isla Vista’s main party street, is.
Although the average amount of property damage during holiday weekends is not known, it has gotten so bad that Isla Vista landlords regularly write clauses into leases to prevent their rentals from being destroyed by overzealous partying. Many landlords make it so that students cannot have overnight guests or alcohol in their homes during holiday weekends, Carson said. Others limit on how many people can be in a residence at a time during specific party-prone dates.
According to Keep It Safe’s Web site, UCSB is not allowing any over-night or weekend visitors in dormitories on campus from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1. In Isla Vista, there will be a festival ordinance in effect from Oct. 25 to Nov 4 between the hours of 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. Residents will not be allowed to play live or recorded music that can be heard outside of their homes.
Many campus parking lots will be closed from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 in order to steer visitors away from the area. Only UCSB or Santa Barbara Community College students (who must purchase a special permit), faculty and staff will be allowed to access the three open lots that weekend. Night and week permits will not be honored, and UCSB police will be chaining off large parts of campus. Visitors will also not be allowed to park in many area lots, such as those around Calle Real, the Camino Real Marketplace, K-Mart, Girsh Park, University Village Plaza or in local Goleta neighborhoods.
In addition to parking restrictions on campus, Del Playa Drive and parts of Trigo Road will be closed off to parking in order to curb property damage costs. Residents must move their cars elsewhere and police will set up six different roadblocks around Del Playa Drive and Trigo Road. Visitors will not be allowed to park on the streets, and police will close off Isla Vista if pedestrian traffic becomes heavy. If this happens, only drivers with proof of residence in Isla Vista will be allowed into the area.
More information can be found at www.ucsbhalloween.com.