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Cal Poly spent over $1 million on St. Patrick’s Day weekend

May 5, 2025

Photo by Jeff Specht

By KAREN VELIE

Cal Poly spent more than $1 million on St. Patrick’s Day weekend, that’s on top of the $112,000 the City of San Luis Obispo spent on public safety, according to the Mustang Daily.

Following years of vandalism, injuries and arrests; Cal Poly hosted a 6 a.m. music festival that attracted thousands of students on St. Fratty’s Day. Students leaving the concert encountered large numbers of law enforcement officers and deputies who ordered then to stay off the roadways.

The operation resulted in many students gathering on campus and downtown and not in residential neighborhoods.

Of the $1,167,157 Cal Poly spent, $657,657 was spent on the on-campus concert, $419,660 was spent on police and security, and $89,840 on other expenses.

From March 14 through March 17, San Luis Obispo spent $86,000 on overtime pay and $29,000 in expenses during the zero tolerance operation focused on stopping the rowdy and destructive St. Fratty’s Day parties that have frustrated neighbors of the Cal Poly’s campus for years.

The street party had grown exponentially over the past several years with major impacts to the neighborhood, including property damage, personal injuries, and illegal and dangerous behavior. In 2024, an estimated 6,500 people gathered on residential streets where they broke mutiple car windows, fences and alcohol bottles.

 


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I’ll bet the Cal Poly Swim Team could have used that $million the school said they didn’t have…


27

If the cops enforce under age drinking laws your neighborhood problems would be solved. All the 21 year olds are downtown partying (not a problem). House parties are for minors. Also enforce noise violations. Actually, I don’t care. SLO sucks.


17

Complain if they do, complain if they don’t… there’s really just no winning with the 60+ aged local community.


-29

You mean the people who own their homes?


8

Bought in 1963 for $134 and a pack of blueberries.


2

1963? You might want to do the math on that.


0

You mean the homes they cant move out of without downgrading severely or paying 10x more in property tax on a decent local home and then having to downgrade their lifestyle so they can afford that higher tax? …it’s gonna be Bakersfield for everyone here within 10 years bud. Who else can afford the houses but out of town people with significant money?


2

So you don’t know about Prop 55?


0

This whole idea of offering a second party venue for students was a stop-gap effort to avoid the street party this year but what are they going to do next year? If they don’t continue to pull the partiers onto campus, again spending a million dollars or more, and away from the neighborhood street party, will it just return to the streets? While the SLO PD did a good job this year in keeping the students out of the streets, will they be able to handle the entire effort to stop the event next year? The city spent a considerable amount on over-time and other expenses, but mutual aid allowed for extra help at little to no cost to the city. Will the city be able to garner that free support next year too? They’re going to need all the enforcement personnel they had this year and maybe more if they have to handle the large crowd of over 6,000 returning to the streets. With all the sharp minds at Cal Poly, there must be something else they can do to stop their students’ partying demands. Their fraternities have crept into residential zones that are not legal to operate in and Cal Poly is purposely defying state law by not sharing where their fraternities and satellite properties are located in the city. There are large, very disturbing parties throughout the Alta Vista neighborhoods with some creeping into the Monterey Heights neighborhoods occurring every night from Thursday through Sunday greatly disturbing other residents, both families and students. The city has inadequate code enforcement personnel to stop these operations, but Cal Poly could do it if they wanted to. Why isn’t our city holding Cal Poly’s feet to the fire to stop the party entitlement to which students claim is their “right to have fun” now? This is not only destructive to our once peaceful, safe neighborhoods near Cal Poly, but it sets a bad example for Cal Poly’s high standards of student conduct and success. Is the partying trend truly a demonstration of “The Mustang Way” in which the university prides itself?


43

Cal Poly should raise student fees to help cover the cost!


31