For University of Oregon students, spring in Eugene elicits feelings that are kept dormant for much of the winter term, where a thick blanket of fog and rain seems to cover the sky for months at a time. 

But as the cloud cover lifts and the leaves return to the Douglas firs, you can feel the energy and excitement exponentially return to campus, reviving an energy that has been hibernating since the previous football season. 

This year, the collective anticipation reached a climax as over 1,000 students gathered in the street, on rooftops, and throughout the surrounding townhouses to cover every square inch of 16th avenue and Patterson St. 

This tailgate party before UO’s annual spring game was the largest party in recent history, as senior Mark Reimers put it “there are no oceans in Eugene, but there was a sea of people.” 

As police arrived on the scene, it quickly became clear breaking up a party of this scale was something Eugene PD wasn’t prepared to handle. 

Police stood on the corner surveilling the scene, not initially taking any action. It wasn’t until a majority of the crowd had dispersed before police searched for the hosts of the party to give them citations, citing the “Social Host Ordinance”, an ordinance meant to deter “unruly gatherings”, that carries a base fine of $375. 

The enactment of the Social Host Ordinance is a trend that stretches back to 2013, when Eugene City Council members created it to curtail the same “unruly behavior” that still plagues the Eugene PD nearly a decade later. 

Although the Social Host Ordinance has been in place since 2013, it is rarely used, and only recently brought back in response to alleged violence against officers at the spring game tailgate.

Since the ordinance had initially been put in place, EPD has been using a “Education First” approach that focused on correcting problematic behavior rather than initially punishing it. 

But according to EPD’s public information officer, Melinda McLaughlin, the educational approach was not working. 

She commented, “The educational approach we have been using was not working with officers getting injured. [With] the size and violent behavior of the crowds, EPD [has] moved to enforcement.” 

McLaughlin cited the spring game party as the catalyst for the shift in policy, as “it created an emergency situation and pulled officers from other areas from the city to respond, due to the violent nature of the crowds.”

McLaughlin referred to a study from the Arizona State Center for Problem Oriented Policing to help illustrate why EPD is taking this enforcement approach and how EPD plans to instruct officers to respond to party “riots”. 

In large, the study emphasizes the importance of pre-planning and gathering information on groups before acting. It is important for officers to note that crowds are made up of individuals and that they should assess each person individually, rather than generalizing an entire group as “violent” or “disruptive”. 

The study focuses on proactive policing rather than reactive, hoping to quell tensions before a situation could become dangerous. 

I reached out to McLaughlin for comment on how EPD diagnoses whether a party is a “riot” and what specific behaviors need to be met for EPD to issue citations, but I received no comment. 

For the University District community, the renewed implementation of citations and the vague guidelines caused a problem almost immediately. 

Several households received citations in the weeks after EPD’s policy change and they, like the rest of the UO community, were unaware of the shift in policy. 

Oregon Senior Grant Urban hosted a party with his fraternity brothers at their Hillyard St residence just two weeks after the spring game party. 

Urban had hosted several parties earlier in the year and faced no disciplinary action from police, but at 4 p.m. police sirens cut through the music and broke up what party attendee Anna Crump called a “relaxed environment.”

“I was really shocked the police came, the music wasn’t too loud, and it was four in the afternoon,” Crump added, “I hadn’t seen the police act like this in my time at UO.” 

Urban said he had hosted “bigger and louder” parties earlier in the year and never had been worried about getting a citation. 

“I thought it was suspicious how they responded to a noise complaint at 4 p.m.” Urban observed, “especially because the address that had called it in was over two blocks away.” 

EPD cited Urban with “prohibited noise” and is facing a fine under the Social Host Ordinance, a new practice that Urban wasn’t warned about previously. 

“This was a massive disservice to us from the police. The officers told us they had never written a ticket like this in their entire career,” Urban said. 

Urban wasn’t the only one who was caught off-guard by the change in policy. EPD published the names and addresses of over 64 students who were cited the same weekend as Urban’s party. 

That same weekend, Junior Eric Wasserman was having an intimate 21 birthday celebration in his backyard when eight officers responded to his 20 person party. 

Like Urban, Wasserman was given a “prohibited noise” citation and is also facing a base $375 fine under the social host ordinance. 

He spoke out immediately on social media in response to his citation and received a large amount of support from the UO student community. 

“We see this as retaliatory policing in response to the actions a few students took in prior weeks,” Wasserman said. “We had a cake, not a keg. There is a stark difference between promoting public safety and an outrageous and retaliatory abuse of power.” 

In the wake of weekends of jail vans, citations, and groups of students lined up on corners, it is clear the Oregon student population has now gotten the message. 

Eugene PD has made it clear that when deemed necessary, they will use the Social Host Ordinance at their discretion to break up a gathering of any size in the University district. 

EPD has also made it clear they will not make any effort to warn the student body in advance of these policy changes, as this has been a recurring problem since 2013. 

A blog post ‌from December 2013 still remains on the UOregon website from former journalism student Katie Yovin when the ordinance was initially put in place. 

It echoes sentiments from students eerily similar to the problems the UO student community is still facing. 

Even in 2013, former student Jordan Cramer was quoted as saying “it was a complete shock,” and “we thought it was ridiculous police did not do a good job of telling students they were starting to apply the new law.” 

Eugene PD reports show that citations are steadily decreasing, pointing to a positive trend, but many question how long that will last before policing is ramped up again. 

Until then, hundreds of students, including Urban and Wasserman, are left with citations to be fought in court, both of which are planning to represent themselves. 

While awaiting his trial, Wasserman had just one thing to say: “prospective Oregon students should know how the city of Eugene will treat them. They will show up to a birthday party with more cops than a bank robbery.”