Before it was October 31, Halloween was over.
Close to 11:30 p.m. Saturday night, the Brunswick Police Department (BPD) arrived at Pine Street Apartments to shut down the traditional campus-wide Halloween party taking place there.
According to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols, BPD received several noise complaints from the Jordan Avenue area. The first complaint came in around 10 p.m., at which point Security asked for the music to be turned down. However, according to Nichols, the noise crept back up and further complaints were placed to the police, who decided to shut down the party. Security assisted BPD in ending the gathering. According to BPD Commander Marc Hagan, the police report indicated there were approximately 300 students in and around the apartments at the time.
Nichols said the party's organizers had met with neighbors before the event.
"None of the complaints came from the people next door," Nichols said. "We encourage students to check with the neighbors every year. Unfortunately—and it could have just been the atmosphere that night—sound was carrying [toward Jordan Avenue]."
Jordan Avenue is roughly half a mile from Pine Street Apartments, prompting Nichols' surprise. However, Hagan said, historically, parties at Pine Street tend to project noise in that direction, even going as far as Topsham in some cases.
Nichols said the party ended in a "safe and orderly fashion. Students were very cooperative."
Houston Kraft '11, the party's DJ, saw things a little differently.
"I don't think Brunswick Police [was] respectful to students," Kraft said. "They don't come off as nice people. I know that's not their job, but they [came] storming in and yell[ed] at everyone."
Kraft said he only had one speaker playing at half volume and that the party was "the tamest I've seen Pinefest since I've been here."
"It seemed more unsafe to send a bunch of drunk students out into Brunswick or over campus than to have them in one place," Heidi Harrison '13 said.
Harrison said that while she did not have any direct contact with BPD that night, some of her friends complained about how aggressively they had been ushered away from Pine Street.
In response, Hagan said it was the officers' responsibility to shut down the party as quickly and smoothly as possible.
"I don't want to trivialize this, but we do have other calls of service that we do have to attend to," Hagan said. "From our perspective, there wasn't an issue. I'm sorry if other people felt we were rushing them."
"I think students were disappointed," Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster said. "Because of the way things transpired, I don't think everyone who's at the party realizes the phones have been ringing and people have been making complaints."
"The thing that's too bad is the students who live at Pine Street did a really good job in advance of the party to notify the neighbors and work with Security," Foster added.
Nichols did note there were two hard alcohol-related transports that night. A sophomore female passed out in the lobby of Stowe Hall and was transported, as was a first year female from Coles Tower. The former received a citation from BPD because she had received a warning for an alcohol violation last year, Nichols said.
Nichols said a third student, a first year male who was also intoxicated, ran away from police upon seeing them. The student was tracked down and placed in handcuffs because of his suspicious behavior but was released shortly thereafter when police determined he was no threat to the area. No further enforcement action was taken by the BPD with the third student.