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St. Patrick's celebrations
(11-24-2018, 07:05 AM)Spokes Wrote:
(11-23-2018, 05:04 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: You give the solution in your comment.  The City/UW/WLU instead of wasting 500,000 dollars of tax dollars hiring out of region police to come and try and suppress the event, the city should organize an actual event.

Didn't they try that with St Patrick's day a couple years ago?

I believe there was an event organized that had 1) admission costs, 2) no entertainment and a single vendor 3) was in another location.

It was still the city/school trying to control and direct or even minimize the event instead of organizing to what people actually want, which is a big party on Ezra St.

A real attempt to organize the event, in my opinion would be 1) free admission (like most of the festivals in KW) 2) Have multiple vendors and entertainment of some kind 3) Be located on Ezra possibly spilling onto King or Albert.
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I don't know if there are events that get policing covered by the City or Region, but I know that for RunWaterloo and Cycle Waterloo events (most if not all of them), they have to pay to have police coverage, roads closed etc. These events are a positive part of our regional culture and should be encouraged.

I honestly have no opposition to the Ezra Street parties, but it seems ridiculous to me that we should just shrug our shoulders and effectively give students a $500K grant to go drink on the street several times a year. This is not how public money should be spent.
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(11-24-2018, 11:44 AM)jamincan Wrote: I don't know if there are events that get policing covered by the City or Region, but I know that for RunWaterloo and Cycle Waterloo events (most if not all of them), they have to pay to have police coverage, roads closed etc. These events are a positive part of our regional culture and should be encouraged.

I honestly have no opposition to the Ezra Street parties, but it seems ridiculous to me that we should just shrug our shoulders and effectively give students a $500K grant to go drink on the street several times a year. This is not how public money should be spent.

I'm not saying I like the Ezra situation, in fact, it drives me nuts.

But most people seem to feel the solution is somewhere between "those damn kids should grow up" and "shut the damn thing down, martial law if you have too"...this attitude, I feel is a good portion of the problem, even if you're worried about cost, I believe a large portion of the cost derives from over policing in an attempt to stifle the party.

We aren't even remotely close to the "this should be a sanctioned and organized event".
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(11-24-2018, 11:44 AM)jamincan Wrote: I don't know if there are events that get policing covered by the City or Region, but I know that for RunWaterloo and Cycle Waterloo events (most if not all of them), they have to pay to have police coverage, roads closed etc. These events are a positive part of our regional culture and should be encouraged.

I honestly have no opposition to the Ezra Street parties, but it seems ridiculous to me that we should just shrug our shoulders and effectively give students a $500K grant to go drink on the street several times a year. This is not how public money should be spent.

I know that every event in Kitchener pays for private security, their own security (by this, I mean City of Kitchener employee's that work in either the by-law division or corporate security, plus custodial staff), and they top it off with WRPS. The rest of the region doesn't contribute. It depends who's all involved with the event for who gets paid what by who. For Kitchener, Special Events (part of Community Services Department) takes care of almost all of the costing, so basically the City of Kitchener charges the City of Kitchener (CSD). Other event organizers also contribute (such as for the Bluesfest, for example) to the costs. For example, for the Rib and Beer show, the vendors are charged for parking in the park, that money goes to the city through licensing for example, and money goes to the event organizer, and that money pays for those needed services.

I don't think there should be any "grants", so to speak, though I do believe that the City of Waterloo and Laurier should pony up any costs associated with this gathering, whatever they are, and someone recoup the costs from the users.

Really no point arguing over the underage drinking, the costs to EMS, etc. The way I see it now, this party will continue unsanctioned until tragedy occurs.
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There are grants e.g. from the City of Kitchener to support events, but they go through a process. Better to have events go through a process.
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(11-24-2018, 03:06 PM)jeffster Wrote: ...

Really no point arguing over the underage drinking, the costs to EMS, etc. The way I see it now, this party will continue unsanctioned until tragedy occurs.

I agree entirely, but lets put the blame where it lies, if the party continues, it is because neither the city, nor the university have an interest in actually solving it--if they did,they'd organize an event. Frankly, some may even anticipate a tragedy, as it will give them the public support to actually shut it down using means which probably violate rights.
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$500,000 a year is essentially an insurance policy to prevent things from getting out of hand. Far smaller parties at Queen's and Fanshawe in recent years have ended in rioting that has caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. If the police don't appear to be doing everything possible to prevent a riot then they will be vilified publicly (and probably sued).

That doesn't even begin to cover the hospital costs from these big parties.

Opioids get all the headlines, but alcohol is the biggest drug problem we have as a country. Our society has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol that no one seems to want to acknowledge its true costs ($14 billion per year in 2002 and responsible for more hospitalization than heart attacks).

I probably sound like a broken record, but these behaviours and outcomes will only change with a societal shift around the norms, views, and attitudes towards alcohol. The provincial government's recent decisions around alcohol and apparent fixation on cheap alcohol are doing the opposite.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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(11-24-2018, 05:31 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: $500,000 a year is essentially an insurance policy to prevent things from getting out of hand. Far smaller parties at Queen's and Fanshawe in recent years have ended in rioting that has caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. If the police don't appear to be doing everything possible to prevent a riot then they will be vilified publicly (and probably sued).

That doesn't even begin to cover the hospital costs from these big parties.

Opioids get all the headlines, but alcohol is the biggest drug problem we have as a country. Our society has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol that no one seems to want to acknowledge its true costs ($14 billion per year in 2002 and responsible for more hospitalization than heart attacks).

I probably sound like a broken record, but these behaviours and outcomes will only change with a societal shift around the norms, views, and attitudes towards alcohol. The provincial government's recent decisions around alcohol and apparent fixation on cheap alcohol are doing the opposite.

Spending 500k as an insurance policy on riots which have cost 100-200k seems like a really bad use of public funds.

Do you have a citation for the hospital cost?  Honestly, I don't know about real costs.  In terms of number hospitalized, St. Patties day compares similarly to other events like Bluesfest and Octoberfest.  It's also the case, contrary to the beliefs of so many commentors, that people who aren't students aren't entitled to more or better or more immediate care than the students who may be injured or sick as a result of this event.

Problem drinking is absolutely a social issue, but that isn't exactly related to this event, and honestly, making this into a real event would help eliminate some of these social problems, serving would be more controlled, but mostly, there would be other things to do, food to eat, etc.
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(11-24-2018, 11:44 AM)jamincan Wrote: I don't know if there are events that get policing covered by the City or Region, but I know that for RunWaterloo and Cycle Waterloo events (most if not all of them), they have to pay to have police coverage, roads closed etc. These events are a positive part of our regional culture and should be encouraged.

I honestly have no opposition to the Ezra Street parties, but it seems ridiculous to me that we should just shrug our shoulders and effectively give students a $500K grant to go drink on the street several times a year. This is not how public money should be spent.

High schools have to pay for officers for school dances and off campus sporting events.  

The issue I see is that the schools would say, well this isn't a university party.  We don't endorse it. Hands off.
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(11-24-2018, 05:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(11-24-2018, 03:06 PM)jeffster Wrote: ...

Really no point arguing over the underage drinking, the costs to EMS, etc. The way I see it now, this party will continue unsanctioned until tragedy occurs.

I agree entirely, but lets put the blame where it lies, if the party continues, it is because neither the city, nor the university have an interest in actually solving it--if they did,they'd organize an event.  Frankly, some may even anticipate a tragedy, as it will give them the public support to actually shut it down using means which probably violate rights.

The issue with the organized event is you also assume that students would want to attend it. One issue with organized events is that students now have to buy only the alcohol provided.  Bring your own won't fly.
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(11-24-2018, 06:22 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Spending 500k as an insurance policy on riots which have cost 100-200k seems like a really bad use of public funds.

Do you have a citation for the hospital cost?  Honestly, I don't know about real costs.  In terms of number hospitalized, St. Patties day compares similarly to other events like Bluesfest and Octoberfest.  It's also the case, contrary to the beliefs of so many commentors, that people who aren't students aren't entitled to more or better or more immediate care than the students who may be injured or sick as a result of this event.

Problem drinking is absolutely a social issue, but that isn't exactly related to this event, and honestly, making this into a real event would help eliminate some of these social problems, serving would be more controlled, but mostly, there would be other things to do, food to eat, etc.

Your estimates of potential damage are too low. The money spent to prevent potentially hundreds of thousands of damage at each street party not the potential for all street parties.

The Fanshawe riot caused >$100,000 in damages and there were only about 1,000 people present. Damages could easily get in to the millions with a crowd of >22,000.

Sorry, I thought I linked to the cost of alcohol report (the press release is here):
Quote:
  • There were 3,079 deaths due to conditions entirely caused by alcohol in 2015 in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. More than half of these were due to alcoholic liver disease. By comparison, 2,066 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2015.
  • Almost 80,000 hospitalizations in Canada were due to conditions entirely caused by alcohol in 2016–2017, which is similar to the number of heart attack hospitalizations (77,000).
  • The rate of women who died from causes linked directly to alcohol has increased by 26% since 2001, compared with a roughly 5% increase over the same period for men.
  • The average number of Canadians hospitalized for conditions entirely caused by alcohol in 2016–2017 grew over the previous year, from 212 to 217 a day.
  • Of all avoidable deaths in Canada, the proportion from conditions 100% attributable to alcohol grew from 2.7% in 2001 to 3.8% in 2015.

In terms of hospitalization costs I already documented that page on page 3 of this thread:
(03-19-2018, 09:25 AM)Pheidippides Wrote: CTV said there were at least 52 hospitalizations, 15 of which were serious, and 1 ICU stay. A standard hospital stay in Ontario costs $5,364 and ICU stay is about 3x that of a general ward bed. That's another $289,656 of everyone's tax dollars at work, all completely preventable.

Also, keep in mind that 500k is just the police spending for St Patrick's day and homecoming. Back in the spring the paramedic costs and WLU's costs were also included. For St Patrick's Day that was $713k. If you add the $200k the police spent on the homecoming party and the nearly $300k in hospitalization costs that is $1.2 million dollars. For reference you can operate an ambulance 12 hours a day for entire year for that much.

Where is your data that says BluesFest and Oktoberfest contribute as many hospitalizations?



Perhaps we can solve two problems at once. Every party related conviction should involve shovelling our sidewalks all winter!
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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(11-25-2018, 07:14 AM)Spokes Wrote:
(11-24-2018, 05:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I agree entirely, but lets put the blame where it lies, if the party continues, it is because neither the city, nor the university have an interest in actually solving it--if they did,they'd organize an event.  Frankly, some may even anticipate a tragedy, as it will give them the public support to actually shut it down using means which probably violate rights.

The issue with the organized event is you also assume that students would want to attend it. One issue with organized events is that students now have to buy only the alcohol provided.  Bring your own won't fly.

And it's not just that, if it's organized, the less mature won't attend (because they're 18 years old). So even if you sold beer at cost, which they could do, a good chunk of students couldn't participate (basically any student born between September 1 and December 31 of first year university).
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(11-24-2018, 06:22 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Spending 500k as an insurance policy on riots which have cost 100-200k seems like a really bad use of public funds.

You're spending the 500k (if that is what it is) for the possibility of exceeding that 500k spent on the policy. Just like you spend $1,200/year on car insurance that you may never use. Or $800/year for home insurance. It's wasted money until you need it. And how many times have we heard of people having their homes burnt to the ground and they're lamenting because they had no insurance. I actually knew of a couple who's apartment burned to the ground, newly weds, and they failed to get insurance when they got their apartment. Now they have a Go Fund Me page because they lost everything including their gifts.

An out of hand party, especially an injury to an innocent bystander, would exceed 500k pretty quickly, if and when it happens.
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(11-25-2018, 03:14 PM)jeffster Wrote:
(11-24-2018, 06:22 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Spending 500k as an insurance policy on riots which have cost 100-200k seems like a really bad use of public funds.

You're spending the 500k (if that is what it is) for the possibility of exceeding that 500k spent on the policy. Just like you spend $1,200/year on car insurance that you may never use. Or $800/year for home insurance. It's wasted money until you need it. And how many times have we heard of people having their homes burnt to the ground and they're lamenting because they had no insurance. I actually knew of a couple who's apartment burned to the ground, newly weds, and they failed to get insurance when they got their apartment. Now they have a Go Fund Me page because they lost everything including their gifts.

An out of hand party, especially an injury to an innocent bystander, would exceed 500k pretty quickly, if and when it happens.

Surprisingly, I'm fairly aware of how insurance works.

I'm pointing out, that other cities *HAVE* had riots, but those riots have not cost anywhere near the 500k that's being suggested as an insurance policy.

Would you pay 500k per year to insure a 250k house?
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(11-25-2018, 03:50 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Surprisingly, I'm fairly aware of how insurance works.

I'm pointing out, that other cities *HAVE* had riots, but those riots have not cost anywhere near the 500k that's being suggested as an insurance policy.

Would you pay 500k per year to insure a 250k house?


Those other communities that have had riots have not had damages anywhere near that amount BECAUSE they are "over" policing the situation exactly the same way WRPS does. They were prepared for that increasingly likely eventuality and were able to keep it under control and limit the damages BECAUSE of their "over" preparation/cautiousness.

In fact the cost of policing these events locally is a bargain compared to other communities. Kingston spent $467,000 (561,153 in 2018 dollars) to control a crowd of 6,500 in 2007. So managing >22,000 people for $330,000 seems pretty efficient ($15/person vs. $86/person).

If bus load of drunk, un-invited visitors showed up to my house, yes I would probably want to buy extra insurance to make sure I'm covered should the party also destroy my neighbour's house and I'm liable.

And again you are equating the 500k incorrectly.

The police spent $330,000 on St Patrick's Day to prevent potentially $250k in damages at this event.

Then they spent $221,500 on Homecoming to prevent potentially $250k damages at this event.

There is potential for damage at each event at almost a 1:1 ratio.

That all said now, I just finished skimming a paper written by someone at Queen's has a reference of a meta-analysis that found the mean property damage of events like these between 1996 and 2001 in the US to be $40,000 (USD). 

Do we even know what private landlords have spent cleaning up and repairing their properties along Ezra? Do their insurers charge them higher premiums for owning a property on Ezra?


So perhaps Dan is right, it is too high of an insurance premium to pay, but for the same reasons I have a 72 emergency kit prepared I still wouldn't want to take that risk.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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