Santa Cruz likes to party. SCPD is finding new ways to crack down.

It’s about that time of night: eleven o’ clock — maybe 11:45 on a lucky night. Less inebriated attendees sense it will happen any minute. It’s sudden but predictable: knock on door, music stops, expletives are hurled, beers fall out of hands — the cops have arrived to break up yet another Santa Cruz house party.

This recurring scenario seems to be something that students have grown to accept. It has become an unavoidable part of attending college in a city that refuses to be called a ‘college town’.

Since the founding of UC Santa Cruz in 1965, the relationship between residents and students has been a tenuous one, to say the least.

To encourage a conversation between the two groups, the Santa Cruz Neighbors, an organization representing a network of local residents, hosted a meeting last Tuesday with UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal to discuss city residents’ concerns with the university and its students.

As of right now, the way I’m feeling toward Theta Chi fraternity can best be summed up with one finger. With a passenger-side window and a repair bill of $256, it’s fair to say that I’m pretty heated. Last Saturday, the Theta Chi fraternity threw a luau-themed day party at 161 Archer St. that took six police cars and two motorcycle cops to break up. By midafternoon, an estimated 200 students were in attendance, and most (if not all) of them were intoxicated. Once the party had been broken up, guests were left to drunkenly lurk around the neighborhood. Meanwhile, residents and families of the area were furious about the noise, vandalism and disrespect Theta Chi’s festivity caused.