Beer Pong 'Devastating' Neighborhoods Around Northwestern Campus

EVANSTON, IL — Alderman representing neighborhoods around Northwestern University said a lack of action by school administrators and absentee landlords led to last week's Evanston City Council Human Services Committee discussion of a possible ban on beer pong.

Ald. Judy Fiske, 1st Ward, said she brought the matter to the committee and asked the law department about the legality of a ban on drinking games to explore what the city can do to help residents who live near campus.

"This is an issue that has been a problem for some time, both in my ward and in the 5th Ward," Fiske said. "It is now spilling over as more houses are purchased by investors and absentee landlords, and basically unsupervised activities [are] causing problems for neighborhood residents, both in the amount of nuisance and noise and litter and just difficult behavior."

Resident Julie Johnson said she had lived beside campus for nearly a quarter-century in relative tranquility, but off-campus student housing next to single-family homes have recently made it very difficult to enjoy life on her block.

"It's a fundamental desire of all people that when you come home you're able to have peace and quiet, and what's been starting to happen in our neighborhood is making it very difficult to have peace and quiet when you come home, and if you're not living in this neighborhood you're not really understanding that," Johnson said.

Neighbors have faced profanity when asking people to quiet down, she said. Landlords have dismissed their complaints, but Johnson suggested a beer pong ban might provide a deterrent against some of the worst partying behavior her neighborhood has experienced.

"We're talking about student houses that are full of people aged 19 to 22, never lived outside the home, alcohol is available, and now they're playing games," she said. "That's the new thing. Games. Beer pong. All kinds of games that involve drinking and winning and competing. And what you have is you have people screaming and yelling when they win a point or when they lose or something like that, and it's really upping the ante on the kind of activity that happens at student parties."

Northwestern prohibits beer pong and other drinking games on its property, Fiske said, so the activities spill over into neighborhoods within shouting distance of residence halls, attracting 100 or more students who fill front yards, sidewalks and streets.

"I'm not in favor of our banning anyone's quiet enjoyment of their property and I absolutely appreciate, especially in these days of COVID, people's use of their front yards to gather and associate with their neighbors, and I think all of that is wonderful," she said. "But that's not what we're talking about here."

Fiske said the city could add a distance requirement limiting the beer pong ban to a certain radius from residence halls, much as it keeps bars from being opened beside schools. While the City Council can pass ordinances and assess fines against those who violate them, aldermen cannot create new offenses that lead to arrest.

RELATED: Beer Pong Ban On Private Property Proposed By Evanston Alderman

Robin Rue Simmons, 5th Ward, said the issue was not a new one. She said she wanted a response from administrators about their policy and a way to hold them publicly accountable.

"This has been going on for a very, very long time. I came into office hearing about this. Northwestern should have been here. They know this is on the agenda," Rue Simmons said. "Dave [Davis, executive director of neighborhood and community relations,] or Tony [Kirchmeier, director of off-campus life,] or someone that can answer to their student conduct and their handbook should have been here and not allowed this to be our problem to manage."

Rue Simmons referenced an unsuccessful September attempt to change the zoning in the 1900 block of Orrington Avenue in an effort to limit the expansion of off-campus student housing.

"They see that it is causing a strain on our neighbors. They're desperate for solutions — considering down-zoning and everything else," she said. "[Northwestern University officials] should be here. They should be enforcing this."

Fiske said Northwestern's private police force does not respond to the complaints, describing them as "not much of a help." Referencing the Oct. 31 protests calling for the abolition of the university's security force, which led to one arrest and property damage, the alderman said the private police agency does not respond to off-campus issues.

"Remember Halloween night they said our responsibility ends at campus," Fiske said, "and that's pretty much the way that it is."

According to the agreement between the city and the university, campus cops have full police powers — other than serving subpoenas — throughout much of Evanston. University spokesperson Jon Yates could not confirm whether university officials had communicated the message Fiske described.

"We are not aware of anyone saying this, and it does not sound like something anyone on our team would say," Yates said. He declined to comment on Rue Simmons' suggestion university officials should have attended the Nov. 2 meeting.

Rue Simmons said the City Council should not have to adjust its ordinances to enforce the university's policies.

"I think Northwestern is the responsible party, and they're negligent," she said. "If they have a policy that says that their students can't do this, they should be enforcing it. They shouldn't put that responsibility on us to make a whole ordinance about it, because where does it end? I mean, say I want to have a glass of wine in my front yard and also play tic-tac-toe has that now become a drinking game? So why isn't Northwestern doing more?"

Ald. Cicely Fleming, 9th Ward, said it would be a slippery slope if the City Council sought to pursue a beer pong ban on private property.

"This just opens up a can of worms for other neighbors," Fleming said. "I think it unfortunately opens up a lot of things, I don't know that we can hone it in to just a certain geographic area. But if it is a student code of conduct, even if they're off campus they're still students.

"They're here to be students, and Northwestern has an entire police department and many more resources than we have, and I don't know how they operate in which they can say, 'We're not coming to this house full of our students because it's not on our campus proper.' I think that it's negligent."

Yates was asked if the university does not enforce a policy banning alcohol-related competitions off campus. He declined to answer, saying only that university officials review "any reports of student behavior."

Fleming questioned whether Northwestern and its private police force have the capacity to issue citations to its students for off-campus behavior.

"I feel like Northwestern is large enough and has enough resources that they should be able to come to the table with something," Fleming said.

Yates was asked if the university has the capacity to ticket students off campus, and if he could provide any times or places where its drinking game prohibition had been enforced. He declined to answer, responding only that administrators review "any reports of student behavior."

Speaking during public comment, resident Jeremy Vannatta called the policy paternalistic and more at home a century ago in the Evanston of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and Frances Willard.

"This is the exact opposite of what defunding the police means. It's an archaic understanding of the purpose of police and will likely result in even more racial biases against gamers Black and Brown," Vannatta said. "Issues related to beer pong can be addressed as a community rather than utilizing our tax dollars to enforce it."

Fiske said it would not have come to the committee if conversations between representatives of the university and the neighbors had been successful. With no clear majority support for a ban on outdoor drinking games, the discussion ended with a plan for further discussions with school representatives at future committee meetings.

"You can send us back to Northwestern and we can talk to them again, but we'll be back here in another month or two and tell you that that's not going anywhere," Fiske said. "Now I would love to be wrong — and I'm happy to do that exercise — but somehow we've got to figure this out, because this is having a really devastating effect on the neighborhoods that are affected."