In the past month, the presidents of two different fraternities have been arrested for noise violations. I assume this is thanks to the efforts of the Beman Park Neighborhood Association as part of their effort to preserve “the safety of students.” I am a member of one of the two fraternities that have been bullied by the neighborhood association, and I’d like to tell our side of the story.

We’re a fraternity. We throw parties. We always have had parties, and we plan to have social gatherings in the future. But we do our best to throw controlled parties, and we care about the safety of our visitors. Additionally, we care about the effect that our parties have on our neighbors.

During the last party, our president got arrested for a noise violation, and the police escorted all of our guests out of the house. We took multiple steps to reduce risks, and yet still, our party elicited a single complaint, at which time the police entered our property and removed the guests from our home.

Here is a list of some of the precautions that we took during this party:

• We notified all of our adjacent neighbors about the party in advance. We also gave them a phone number to call with their concerns about the party before calling the police.

• We use a system of markings on the hands of guests to determine whether they are over 21, and able to legally consume alcohol.

• All windows in the house were shut to prevent unnecessary noise.

• All active brothers were required to remain 100% sober during the party.

• Our social chair remained outside for the entire party with a rotating staff of brothers. While outside, they kept the line to enter on our property, checked invites and ID’s, removed drinks from exiting guests, and kept our guests inside the house whenever possible.

• There was a brother stationed in every room and hallway of the house at all times to minimize risks.

• We had a one-hour brotherhood meeting before the party to discuss all of the concerns I have listed above.

In my opinion, we threw the perfect party. The police even came by a few times and said we were doing a nice job. But towards the end of the party, they lined up seven patrol cars in front of our house, arrested our president, and ended the party because of a single noise complaint.

There are a few other points that I would like to address. First, I do not blame the police officers for enforcing the noise ordinance. Pressure was put on the mayor from the Beman Park Neighborhood Association, who in turn put pressure on the Troy police. The police were very polite, and offered our president advice when he was taken to the station.

Second, it seems like we get a lot of bad PR from the neighborhood. I wonder if the neighborhood knows about the 500 hours of community service that we performed last semester at the All Saint’s Cathedral in Albany. Do they know that we shovel the snow for our neighbors in the winter? Do they know that we spent hundreds of dollars and many man-hours installing sound proofing in our music room? How about the tye-dye event that we held to support the Red Cross in the wake of September 11?

I encourage the dean of students, Mark Smith, to assess this new enforcement of noise ordinances which are apparently designed to preserve “the safety of the students.” As the dean of Rensselaer students, he should be protecting our rights, rather than acting on behalf of the neighborhood association.

If this ludicrous enforcement of noise ordinances continues, opportunities for social gatherings at fraternities may cease. Then Rensselaer can move up in the ranking boards from fifth to first in the category of “Least Happy Students.”

Rocco Balsamo