All Posts Tagged With: "parties"
Knife fight injures six near McMaster
Party-goers came from club outlawed by McMaster
Four people went to hospital and at least two others were cut during a knife fight at a party near McMaster University. Police entered the party at 69 Mount Royal Ave. at 4:30 Friday morning.
Earlier in the night, police arrested two people at an event called ACADEMIX 101, which was taking place at Club 77 in downtown Hamilton. The event was advertised by Next Level Entertainment (NLE), which calls itself “McMaster’s official entertainment and talent group” on Facebook. Last year, McMaster University banned all events that take place at Club 77 from being advertised on its campus.*
Police entered Club 77 after hearing about fights inside. Two 20-year-old men, one from Brampton and the other from Mississauga, were arrested. Later, police contended with a crowd of roughly 400 people outside of the club. Some of those people ended up at the party on Royal Ave., police said.
No victim or witness has co-operated with police so far. The house has a smashed front door, a slashed window screen and metal bars from a railing on the front porch are bent or missing.
Next Level Entertainment’s Facebook page appears to be administered by Kisanath WooDz and Pratheeb K’mar. “AT MCMASTER STUDENT CENTER SELLING TICKETS,” WooDz posted to the page on Thursday around 4 p.m. Earlier in the day, someone listed as a student at York University, wrote that 900 tickets had been sold. Before that, someone else posted that “…the Waterloo/Laurier bus is officially SOLD OUT, only bus left is the York bus.”
*This story originally repeated an incorrect fact that the Hamilton Spectator had attributed to a McMaster spokesperson. Gord Arbeau of Community and Public Relations at McMaster clarified on Monday that Next Level Entertainment was not banned from campus. It was the promotion of events at Club 77 that McMaster University had banned. Maclean’s On Campus regrets the error.
Scientists develop date-rape drug detector
Have campus parties just gotten a little safer?
It’s a rule of thumb at any campus party: never leave your drink unattended. But two Israeli scientists say they have developed a new sensor that is 100 percent accurate at detecting date-rape drugs in drinks, potentially rendering the rule somewhat less compulsory.
According to AFP, Professor Fernando Patolsky and Doctor Michael Ioffe of Tel Aviv University’s school of chemistry have created a sensor that, when inserted into a drink, indicates the presence of GHB (gamma-hydrobuxybutyric acid) and ketamine, two of the most common date-rape drugs. The device has been tested on a variety of popular cocktails and soft drinks and has been able to detect the drugs in spiked drinks every time. The scientists are working to expand the sensor’s capabilities to include to detection of Rohypnol, another common date-rape drug.
The pair expects the final production of the device to akin to the size of a stir stick, potentially available for sale in the next year and a half.
Traffic
I need better excuses for why I didn’t want to come to your holiday party
[A mid-sized holiday mixer is being hosted at a woman's home. The doorbell rings and she walks up to the door and opens it.]
Woman 1: Hey, you made it!
Woman 2: Yeah, hi, sorry I’m late. [she walks in, the door closes behind her]
W1: Oh, no problem. What held you up?
W2: Traffic.
[silence between the two women]
W1: Traffic?
W2: Yeah, it’s just crazy out there. The snow is heavy, the roads are terrible – it’s pretty bad.
W1: Traffic.
W2: My car wouldn’t even start at first and – let me just take off my coat – and it was just sliding across the ice.
W1: You’re an hour and a half late because of traffic.
W2: Yeah, I mean, I’m sorry I’m so late but -
W1: No, no, it’s fine, it’s just that I didn’t think you’d have to drive such a short distance.
W2: Well, typically I would have walked but it’s so cold outside tonight.
W1: But, you live next door.
[silence]
W2: What are you trying to say?
W1: Nothing, it’s just that you live literally twenty steps away from my front door.
W2: So?
W1: You’re telling me that you physically got into your car, put the key in the ignition and drove 20 – maybe 30 feet – and you somehow got stuck in traffic.
W2: Well, if you’re going to say it like that.
W1: I just don’t understand how you could have gotten stuck in traffic.
W2: Well, you’ve got at least twenty people in your house. I was looking for some place to park.
W1: It took you over an hour to park?
W2: There was a lot of snow. And besides, it’s not like your house is so easy to find.
[silence]
W1: What?
W2: What?
W1: You live directly next door to me. You can wave to me in my bedroom from your bathroom window.
W2: It’s so shrouded! You have so many plants and there were all those cars.
W1: Look, if you’re just late, that’s okay. I mean-
[crosstalk]
W2: I just don’t understand -
W1: you might have been doing your hair -
W2: why don’t you believe -
W1: and you just lost track of time -
W2: that your house is kind of hard to find -
W1: and you’ve created this elaborate story.
[silence]
W2: It was just traffic.
W1: Alright, well, you’re here now so it doesn’t matter. Lets just get you a drink. [She walks to the window and pulls the curtain back.] Wow, I guess you’re right. There really is a lot of snow outside.
W2: Yeah, I know.
W1: Where did you end up parking anyway?
W2: Oh, I just drove around until I decided to risk it and park in your neighbor’s driveway.
[silence]
W1: You parked in your own driveway?
W2: You know, that’s a great top. I have it in blue.
New York Times weighs in on Queen’s party “problem”
Former city councilor combats late-night revelry by posting photos on the Internet
The issue of noisy student partying at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. has spilled onto the pages of the New York Times in the form of a letter to the high-profile columnist “The Ethicist.”
Randy Cohen, who tackles ethical dilemmas ranging from wedding present re-gifting to kidney donation etiquette, was sent a letter by Robert May regarding the university town’s late-night parties.
According to the letter, an unnamed former Kingston city councilor tries to combat the “scourge” of rowdy students by posting photographs of them on the Internet.
“Because he takes his photographs in public places and does not identify anyone by name, he is not breaking any laws,” writes May. “However, there is much discussion on campus about the ethics of his actions. Thoughts?”
In response, Cohen says he finds it ethically troubling that the pictures were posted by a former city councilor, which hints at an official response to the rambunctious parties. Even if the person were not a former official, he says the choice to make the photos public was still unwise.
“In our youth, we all did things at parties that we would not want published in the newspaper. (If you didn’t, the parties you attended were too tepid.),” writes Cohen. He does, however, say “noise complaints should be taken seriously; loud parties can heighten tensions between town and gown.”
He suggests the former councilor/photographer take other, nonpunitive, measures to combat any disruptive partying, including encouraging the university to provide venues where loud, boisterous students will not bother neighbours.
Last week Queen’s University cancelled its popular fall homecoming celebrations for two years as the unofficial festivities grew progressively more out of control. In 2005, a car was rolled and burned. This year, nearly 140 people were arrested, almost 700 others received liquor-related fines and 23 severely intoxicated people needed to be taken to hospital.
Cohen ends his article with some advice for the university and its administration.
“Solid advanced planning can be more successful . . . than an irate reaction from a camera-happy quasi official on a Saturday night.”
