How will SLO stop massive St. Fratty’s Day partying? ‘Don’t come,’ police chief warns

San Luis Obispo police Chief Rick Scott has a strong warning for those who might consider attending future St. Fratty’s Day celebrations in the city: “Don’t.”

“Don’t come to our community,” he said during a City Council meeting recap following the massive event that saw thousands of college students flood a San Luis Obispo neighborhood on Saturday. “Don’t come to celebrate this event in our community with the intent of causing harm to our communities.”

St. Fratty’s is an annual St. Patrick’s Day holiday tradition where students gather in the early morning hours for a large block party in the neighborhoods near Cal Poly.

This year’s event was the biggest ever, Scott said, with between 6,000 and 7,000 people in attendance — drinking, climbing on roofs and utility poles and packing the streets to the point the Police Department closed some of the neighborhood roads in the interest of public safety.

In the aftermath, there were some reports of damage to property and cars throughout the impacted neighborhoods, as well as significant damage to some of Cal Poly’s dorms.

According to Scott, the police presence was tripled from previous years, with a total of 120 officers on duty on Saturday. The Police Department had additional support from Cal Poly police, the California Men’s Colony and the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Even so, Scott noted there were a total of 12 arrests and 189 citations issued Saturday.

Meanwhile, downtown was much quieter than anticipated, he said, with only minimal crowds throughout the weekend.

Will SLO stop future St. Fratty’s day events?

During Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Scott shared ways the city might curb similar destructive events in the future.

“I think we’ve obviously seen this event grow over the years,” he said. “It has reached a point where it cannot be permitted to continue to grow. We have done our best with the resources we have available to contain it, but I think our strategy looking forward shall not be on containment. It shall be on prevention.”

Scott said the Police Department is going to be “working very closely with Cal Poly,” which in the near-term includes “conducting an assessment of the activities that occurred on campus,” providing additional support in “identifying suspects that can and will be held accountable for the extensive damage that occurred.”

He added police plan to open dialogues with students and enlist their support to make St. Fratty’s Day parties “not the place to be and (encourage) people not to attend it.”

“We find these activities extremely disappointing, dangerous and criminal,” Scott said. “This is not in keeping with Cal Poly’s reputation and certainly not that of our community. Looking ahead, these lawless activities cannot and should not be allowed to occur in our communities.”

City Manager Derek Johnson echoed Scott’s sentiments, saying the city was “deeply disturbed and troubled by the events that happened this weekend both on campus and off campus.”

He said the city has been in contact with Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong — who issued a scathing letter to the campus community Saturday night in light of the damage to campus.

“I think there is a shared understanding that we are at a point in time where we really need to cooperate,” Johnson said. “I anticipate we will be putting together a team that will be working on efforts and strategies, as Chief Scott identified, on prevention rather than containment.”

Johnson said there were a number of “data-driven strategies from other communities that we can pull from.”

“We understand that students are at a point in their time where they want to socialize, and there are boundaries and those boundaries were clearly crossed this weekend,” he said. “We don’t intend to let that happen again.”