Mac administration must take charge

As a long-term resident of Westdale I have suffered through many episodes of bad behaviour by some of McMaster’s noisy, self-centred drunken louts.

I avoid referring to these people as “students” because the term refers to people who are studying, not shouting and drinking excessively in public, urinating and swearing on the sidewalks and buildings.

I applaud the recent decision to hire extra bylaw enforcement to help control the negative effects of these people on the neighbourhood that we share, but am perplexed that McMaster Student Union representatives consider garbage, snow and yard related issues like parking on lawns to be the responsibility of landlords. Absentee landlords have much to answer for in the degrading of this once-lovely family community, but it is not their responsibility to pick up the slack for things mommy and daddy used to do.

And rather than come up with a way to curtail bad behaviour, which is truly the most pressing problem, the MSU would be “open to discussing the possibility of municipal permits to close streets for homecoming bashes ...”? Excuse me?

Until the administration at McMaster makes a serious effort to control the toxic behaviour of the partying idiots drunkenly and proudly wearing their name and colours, things will not change.

I will suggest a hiring of a sizeable contingent of police officers during special “events,” who are ready and able to issue summonses and make arrests, and who are paid by a levy on McMaster similar to the one paid by the bar owners in Hess Village.

I further suggest that the university make it clear that individuals who are disruptive neighbours in McMaster’s name might find their applications for academic study in following years rejected or postponed, or other benefits withheld.

Westdale and West Hamilton are the home of another very large group of young people; Columbia College. I have yet to see a disruptive or noisy drunken episode involving those students. Is it because they are more wellbrought-up, decent students, or is it because Columbia College values it reputation more than McMaster does? Tony Kilgannon, Hamilton