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Recurring complaints about Elon University students living off campus have prompted Elon’s Board of Aldermen to review the town noise ordinance for the second time in six months.

The town has a population of 6,738. Elon University has 5,628 enrolled students, with 2,051 undergraduates living off campus.

“Students and people in traditional lifestyles have different hours, and they have different interests,” said Elon Town Manager Mike Dula.

Eugene Grimley, who complained at the December meeting, blames excessive drinking.

“It’s just late nights, testosterone and alcohol,” Grimley said. “Everything else comes from that.”

In 2000, when Elon had a few hundred fewer students enrolled, 64 percent of undergraduates lived on campus. During this academic year, 59 percent live on campus.

“That’s the bigger issue — our students are moving off campus into residential areas,” said Lynn Patterson, university assistant vice president for student life.

Police received 29 noise complaints from January to early March, and one citation was issued to an Elon junior. Police did not track noise complaints until this year.

Town officials reassessed the noise ordinance in January after a small group of citizens attended the Dec. 1 Board of Aldermen meeting to complain about student noise violations, underage drinking and lewd conduct at off-campus parties.

Town police officers are dispatched to a noisy house only after a private citizen complains. Officers issue a verbal warning and can only return to the residence to issue a citation if a second resident complains.

In most of the recent noise complaint cases, the party was either shut down voluntarily after the first warning or no other complaints were called in to warrant another police response.

In seven cases, officers did not find loud noise or disruptive behavior. In one, students were charged with underage drinking and one with a drug violation.

Past complaints
From June 2005 to February 2007, four citizens raised concerns about student parking, and three told the board about students breaking the town ordinance against three unrelated people living together, according to town records.

Patterson, Dula, Elon Chief of Police LaVell Lovette and Elon police community relations officer Candace Ripple all said student behavior has improved in recent years.

“I really see a change,” Lovette said. “I think our interactions with the students have become much more positive over the last few years.”

Lovette said parties are smaller and assault calls and violence against officers have decreased.

Town Planner Sean Tencer said the number of students violating the town’s appearance ordinance — prohibiting junk on lawns — is lower, too.

“I think students and residents are keeping up their yards a little bit better,” Tencer said. “When people do have a gathering, there is some effort to try and clean up their yard when it’s done.”

Grimley, who lives on South Williamson Avenue, said although the parties are smaller, more student housing downtown worsens the problem.

“In my opinion, the town central is going down fast,” Grimley said.
Grimley said it’s easy for students to determine who complained, making neighbors targets for intimidation.

Lovette, Dula and Ripple said they did not know of any cases of retaliation against neighbors who call the police.

“We would handle things a lot differently if that was the case,” Lovette said. “That’s a different crime — harassment, intimidation.
Anything that’s going to create a fear factor is going to be handled differently.”

Grimley said he has seen police response to noise complaints improve lately and said the second-call policy is a good one, as long as it is enforced.

Some not bothered
Dolores and John Truitt live in the second house behind the Elon Post Office, with student apartments all around them. They have lived in their house since 1987.

“If they’ve got a Saturday night party or something, let them have their fun,” Truitt said. “They’re teenagers, and this is their time. That’s our feeling.”

Truitt said some student neighbors have knocked on her door to inform her they were having a party.

“During springtime or after a football game, we have lots of beer cans and cups in our yard, and we hear them coming in at 2 or 3 a.m., but they’re not loud, and they don’t disturb us,” Truitt said. “We pick up the cans.”

Lucille Andes, 91, has lived at 111 Atkinson Ave., across the street from student apartments and sharing a backyard with college students, for three years. She lived down the street for eight years before that.

“We’ve never had any loudness or anything over there that’s bothered us at all,” Andes said of the apartment complex.
Andes said she might be more tolerant because she worked at the university for 39 years.

University actions
If Patterson, the university assistant vice president, receives a complaint from a resident, she asks Ripple to talk to the students in question and then brings the students in to see her.

She said she has received 10 to 12 calls from community members in the last couple years.

Patterson works with Tencer to talk with students about violations of the appearance ordinance and sends out e-mails each semester to remind students about community ordinances.

“Most of our university students are good citizens and good neighbors and want to be depicted as such and want to know how they can be more proactive with their peers,” Patterson said.

Grimley said he would like the university to educate students about the consequences of high-risk drinking and teach them “common sense” behavior, like treating their neighbors the same way they would treat their parents’ neighbors back home.

Town actions
The town has tried to tackle the problem in a number of ways.
“We do have dialogues with the people who are causing problems (and) with landlords, and I think we’re making a good effort to do what we can do,” Dula said.

Lovette said the police department works on special projects with N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement about three times a year, and officers are encouraged to participate in outside projects with the university.

“We’re trying to make proactive contacts rather than just calls to service,” Lovette said.

Community and university groups have hosted outreach pizza parties to bring residents and students together in a nonconfrontational setting.

Dula and Ripple stressed the importance of calling the police about problems.

“We really need the residents to be the ones to call and let us know when something’s going on,” Ripple said. “We want people to call 911 — that’s what we’re here for.”