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Marx calls for rooftop party ban

March 9, 2015

roof 2San Luis Obispo Mayor Jan Marx is calling for a city ban on rooftop parties, following a weekend incident in which a garage roof collapsed at an early St. Patrick’s Day party. [Tribune]

At 6:21 a.m. Saturday, between 30 and 40 party goers were standing on top of a garage at a house party near Cal Poly. The roof collapsed, causing at least eight injuries, and online footage of the incident spread across the country.

Marx described the incident as mob behavior and an affront to the city. She told the Tribune it is sad that students act unintelligently and irresponsibly just months after they display the intelligence needed to get into Cal Poly.

An ordinance would theoretically put an end to “brewfing” — drinking on rooftops, Marx said. The ordinance would be a step toward regaining control in neighborhoods characterized by high student populations, she added.marx4

The roof collapse occurred during a block party on Hathway Avenue, a prime location for Cal Poly partygoers. Thousands of people attended the early St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

Cal Poly head baseball coach Larry Lee, and his brothers Mike and Terry Lee, own the property where the roof collapsed. Mike Lee said none of the tenants living at the house planned the party, and none of the affected families has threatened a lawsuit.


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Let’s see, there were 3,000 kids partying in a neighborhood, and a roof with 30 to 40 of them on it collapsed. Clearly, people partying on the roof is the problem, right Jan? The 2960 partying on the ground are OK. Geez, what a dimwit demagogue.


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Bingo…


Had this roof not caved in, this 3K “event” would have gone unnoticed. Something ain’t right in SLO.


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puM1k-S86nE


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Twit.


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I would like to propose that SLO City Gov’t “ban” the following within city limits:


– All crime.


– All disease.


– All ignorance and stupidity.


– All poverty.


– All bad ideas.


“Banning” the above would be every bit as effective in each case as Marx’s proposed ban.


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I’d like to propose a ban on all reactionary, racist, xenophobic and anti-science hate speech in any forum as well.


Those could be more easily provable before “Minority Report” status. Might fall under your ‘All bad ideas’ heading.


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Na…then we wouldnt have any feedback from the leftists in the community and how much fun would that be?


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Hmm…great suggestion, Jan Marx.


What’s next? Two full-time brewfer patrol officers? Have the taxpayers pay ’em $150K/year to enforce the brewfer ordinance.


And while the brewfer cops are at it, they can patrol Laguna Lake Park and make sure no elderly riff-raff are feeding the ducks. Also daily cruise the streets and look for *GASP* garbage cans that are visible from the streets.


SLO=still the happiest city in America? Well, it’s becoming the city with the most ordinances, that’s for sure.


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I would like to propose that the Brewfer Special Patrol (BS Patrol) be outfitted with a mini version of Ian’s silly boat for Laguna Lake and a tank or armored personnel carrier for those scary “Poly neighborhoods.” Better outfit it with a couple of 50mm beanbag guns just to be safe. The tank or APC could tow the city’s porta-crapper trailer behind it, providing yet another service to the community. Heck, I would even advocate buying a dozen stall porta-crapper trailer if we’re going to prepare a grant for “free money” anyways.


Just imagine how impressive both (or all three!) would be sitting on trailers on display in Downtown SLO on Thursday nights.


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You joke, but the PD already has the armored personnel carrier. Chief says it’s needed because police never know what they’ll encounter. Right.


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Yep, ordinancly happy!


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I thought the students at Cal Poly were some of our best and brightest…to not recognize that too much weight was on the garage rafters shows a huge lack of intelligence.


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They were all so drunk that they thought that only one other person was on the roof.


They thought that the rest were all hallucinations.


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You assume they are Cal Poly students, but they could be Cuesta students, or not even students at all! Apparently a lot of people came in from out of town for this event.


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You are correct. Students flock to Isla Vista for Halloween, SLO for St. Patrick’s Day.


To blame this all on Cal Poly students is not fair.

Even if the majority were from Cal Poly, they are a small representation of the overall student population.

It is fair to question the judgment of those on the roof, and hold them responsible for damages.


But someone also needs to be asking the question, how did the police chief get out snookered on this one?


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Jan is starting to sound more like her brother Carl every day.


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Karl…


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No, she really has a brother Carl.


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I think Karl may have been her great-great grandfather. LOL.


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Yes you are all justified in your anger because none of the readers of CalCoastNews ever did anything stupid or unsafe in their lives, in fact they all live the moral and ethical standards that we strive to live by.


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I did lots of stupid stuff when I was that age, the difference was it was my fault, and my fault alone.

No laws had to be passed to prevent people from doing the same.


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Darwinian down selection dynamics was once again demonstrated on Hathway. Someone please tell me that there were no engineering students on the roof. If there was, I suggest Cal Poly expel them immediately. I really don’t want the next ” Alaskan bridge to nowhere” being designed by some who doesn’t understand the mechanics of roof loading.


It’s also interesting that Poly’s answer to the student drinking problem is to now serve alcohol on campus and then push them out into the neighborhoods.


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Arch e majors? To be fair, they could have all been bio students with a penchant for discussing sociopolitical issues. Wait, that doesnt make sense either. How about drama?– You know, the world is a stage (and therefore so are garage rooftops).


Either way, we shouldn’t be too critical. These students did their campus community and the nation a great service. No doubt thousands more across the country now know that there are inherent risks to partying on rooftops, and they will be more likely to think twice before doing so. These young people took initiative, and regardless of intent, led by example — possibly saving countless lives as a result. Now that’s something the slo community can be proud of!


Seriously, though, thankfully the learning curve didn’t result in serious injury this time around.


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“Learn by Doing”. Let the poindexters at Berkeley will run mathematical models. 400sf roof designed for a 10psf live load (the load in addition to the “dead load” weight of building materials) = 4000lb, divided by 150 lb/party-goer = 27. By all accounts the roof held up to 30-40. We should amend the building code so that roofs in college neighborhoods be constructed or upgraded to the 40psf for floor systems.


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I am not sure that students beyond those that witnessed the collapse or personally knew the fallen will really get the impact to make this risk real to them. There have been at least 3 balcony collapses from student party overloads that I vaguely remember happening in the past 20-30 years. The first occurrence obviously didn’t prevent the others from happening at distant locations.


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