Mourning an Aggie

Scott Heinig, who received a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2010 and played on the Aggie baseball team, died Sunday (April 17) as a result of a head injury at a private house party following Picnic Day. Read more.

Memorial service

A top UC Davis official says he saw fewer people staggering around campus during this year’s Picnic Day celebration, and city police say they saw less violent behavior downtown, compared with Picnic Day 2010.

Drinking continued to be a major problem, associated with most of the arrests and citations. But, while official observers sensed improvement in the crowd’s behavior, no one ventured to predict what the future might hold for the nearly 100-year-old celebration.

“We are looking at it from all perspectives: campus and city police, the university and our students, our neighbors and the business community,” Student Affairs Vice Chancellor Fred Wood said Wednesday (April 20) after a Picnic Day debriefing with campus and city leaders.

He described Picnic Day, on campus, as one of the calmest in recent memory. But, like other observers, he noted the entirely different atmosphere downtown — with lots of “unfamiliar faces,” just like last year, people who came to Davis for a party, not the university’s open house.

“And, yet, the open house is the entire reason for Picnic Day — to show off our campus and its programs,” Wood said. “We need to keep that in mind. Thousands of people come here for the right reason, and they deserve a calm, safe, family-friendly environment both on campus and in the city.”

Campus and city police reported a combined total of 64 arrests, 22 more than last year, and a citation count of 269, up from 73. Officials attributed the increases to a heightened police presence and a zero-tolerance, proactive strategy in dealing with troublemakers — after the evening and night of Picnic Day 2010 turned particularly nasty, with numerous fights and assaults, even an attack on a police officer, and reports of women being groped and someone firing a gun.

One law enforcement officer commented that similar problems might have cropped up this year, but for a half-dozen or so police officers on every corner. Other officers rode Unitrans, which reported better-behaved passengers (who, by the way, also paid $1 for their rides, instead of getting them free as in past years).

The campus Police Department, with six dispatchers on duty, tallied 498 calls for service, up from 330 last year. The city Police Department tallied 740 calls for service, up from 516 last year.

The campus Police Department deployed 51 officers on Picnic Day 2011, receiving help from sister campuses — Berkeley, Merced, San Francisco and Santa Cruz — and California State University, Sacramento. They patrolled on foot and bicycle, and in cars, on campus and on city streets along the campus’s boundaries.

UC Davis police also assigned seven officers to work the night shift with city police.

Among a campus crowd estimated at 75,000 people, the daytime patrol made 10 arrests, all involving public drunkenness. In one of those cases, police added a charge of assault, and in another, a charge of possession of a controlled substance. Campus police made four arrests last year, all involving public drunkenness.

The campus police squad gave out 62 citations last weekend, mostly for alcohol-related violations, up from 13 last year.

‘Downtown area seemed safer’

The city of Davis reported 54 arrests Friday and Saturday, including 38 for public drunkenness and three for fighting. The city police squad received Picnic Day assistance from the UC Davis, West Sacramento, Woodland and Winters police departments; the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department; the California Highway Patrol; the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control; and the state Department of Fish and Game.

In a news release, Davis police officials noted their “overall perception” that this year’s Picnic Day brought fewer crimes of violence (reported and not reported) compared with last year.

“While there was a significant amount of alcohol-driven disorder, the Davis downtown area seemed a safer place than last year,” city police said in the news release. “The reasons and explanations for these phenomena — good and bad — will be the subject of soon-to-be-held after-action reviews and critiques.”

Lt. Paul Doroshov of the city Police Department said: “We had more officers, and we were more proactive in our enforcement this year, to avoid bigger issues down the line. And we seem to have done that.”

Greek community impresses

In a briefing for the media at 4 p.m., as campus activities wound to a close (except for the Battle of the Bands), official observers said they had been pleased for the most part by what they saw of the crowd’s behavior on campus.

“I think our students took the message seriously,” said Charlie Colato, chair of the student-run Picnic Day. “They knew what was at stake” — the future of Picnic Day.

From this year’s “Rewind” theme to the Picnic Day Pledge and its emphasis on safe partying, Colato and his colleagues emphasized a return to the day’s family-friendly traditions.

Wood said the Greek community had particularly impressed him.

“Last year I saw a sea of red cups all along fraternity row,” Wood said, referring to the plastic cups that are usually a telltale sign of keg parties. “This year I saw hardly any.”

Wood noted that Greek houses had wisely moved their parties indoors or to back yards, rather than having parties in front where they attracted outsiders.

One fraternity on Russell Boulevard put up yellow caution tape around the front lawn. Another called campus police for help in quelling a party before it got out of control. “By calling us, they did exactly what we asked them to do,” Lt. Matt Carmichael said.

On Sunday, the Greek community contributed further — when more than 100 fraternity brothers and sorority sisters turned out to help clean up the campus and downtown.

Safety first and foremost

The vice chancellor acknowledged that many students would drink alcohol on Picnic Day, but said he hoped that the university’s outreach had encouraged them to do so “reasonably and responsibly.”

The overriding goal, Wood said: a safe day for everyone.

As he toured the campus on bicycle, he said, he saw “more smiles and less staggering” among groups of young people. Occasionally, he saw one person within a group who appeared to be drunk, whereas last year he saw entire groups of people who appeared to be drunk.

Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said friends seemed to be looking out for their friends this year, as indicated by the number of calls for medial aid: 16, at least nine alcohol-related, up from 11 last year.

At midafternoon, for example, while waiting for medical personnel, friends and Memorial Union staff watched over a young woman who was crawling in an MU stairwell.

Wood credited Colato with eschewing the traditional attitude of making every Picnic Day “bigger and better” than the last. Instead, Colato and the rest of the student organizers cut back on publicity, decided against radio sponsorships and curtailed talk of Picnic Day in social media.

And just as organizers had hoped, children and families had fun — at the dunk tank, for example, where children merrily threw softballs at the target. And when a child threw too softly to trip the lever, the dunk tank operator led the child to the target and invited her to push it with her hands.

Elsewhere on the “zero-landfill” Quad, dozens of student volunteers stood at waste cans to advise people on where to put their trash — with the goal of diverting all waste to compost or recycling, not the landfill.

A long line of customers waited at Nu Alpha Kappa’s two-story-high taco booth, “Gunrock’s Stable.” And in keeping with Picnic Day tradition, seemingly half of everyone in the crowd carried tomato seedlings.

Picnic ‘Day’ goes into the night

Still, at the late afternoon briefing, Wood, Spicuzza and Colato acknowledged that Picnic Day’s official close on campus would not bring the downtown partying to an end.

Indeed, as the sun began to go down, cars and people poured onto city streets and the atmosphere began to change — with the Davis Police Department reporting a significant out-of-town presence.

At 5 p.m., long lines formed outside many eateries, including Uncle Vito’s Slice of New York at Second and E streets — even though it was not serving alcoholic beverages.

The pizza joint had sworn off booze for the day, posting a sign that read: “Uncle Vito’s will serve pizza only from our E Street pickup window only. We hope you enjoy a safe and festive Picnic Day and hope to see you again soon!”

Vito’s went above and beyond what the campus and city had been hoping for when they set up the Picnic Day Community Covenant, asking merchants with liquor licenses to refrain from selling or serving alcohol before 11 a.m. and not using special pricing that would encourage over-consumption, practices blamed for some of last year’s Picnic Day problems.

Sixty-one merchants out of 100 had signed on as of April 13. They included The Graduate tavern, in the University Mall shopping center at Russell Boulevard and Anderson Road.

The Davis Enterprise reported a crowd of about 75 mostly young people between noon and 12:30 p.m. at The Graduate. “Their behavior was mild and low-key,” the Enterprise reported, “a stark contrast to years past when The Grad opened at 6 a.m. with $1 beers and was packed with hundreds of Picnic Day revelers.”

The city also established a safety zone enhancement area (in downtown Davis and along Russell Boulevard), allowing for higher fines — $395 — for violations of noise and open container ordinances, urinating in public and smoking where banned.

The Police Department tallied 124 open container citations — all but six of them in the safety enhancement zone.

Pat Bailey, Dave Jones and Sylvia Wright, senior public information representatives with University Communications, contributed to this report. Jones is the editor of Dateline UC Davis.

Police log

UC DAVIS

288 calls for service (234 last year)

10 arrests (2 last year)

• Public drunkenness — 8
• Public drunkenness and assault — 1
• Public drunkenness and possession of a controlled substance — 1

62 citations (13 last year)

• Open container (alcoholic beverage) in public — 43
• Minor in possession of alcohol — 16
• Urinating in public — 1
• Driving on a suspended license — 1
• Stop sign violation — 1

16 calls for medical aid

• Alcohol-involved — 9
• Alcohol not involved — 3
• Unknown if alcohol was involved — 1

CITY OF DAVIS

740 calls for service (516 last year)

54 arrests

City officers and their partners made 38 arrests for alleged public drunkenness, and, in six of those cases, police added charges of resisting arrest.

Police said they booked one suspect on charges of felony assault and resisting arrest, and three suspects on charges of fighting, with resisting arrest charges added in two of those cases.

The rest of the city’s arrests: nine for driving under the influence, one for cocaine possession, one for domestic violence and one on an outstanding warrant.

Arrest totals for previous years:

• 2010 — 38 (32 misdemeanors, six felonies)
• 2009 — 32 (30 misdemeanors, two felonies)
• 2008 — 19 (17 misdemeanors, two felonies)
• 2007 — 19 (all misdemeanors)

207 citations (60 last year)

The citation count includes the following for alcohol offenses:

• Open container in public — 124 (36 last year, 43 in 2009, 34 in 2008 and 47 in 2007)
• Minor in possession — 37 (20 last year)
• Open container in a motor vehicle — 4
• Furnishing alcohol to a minor — 3

The other citations:

• Urinating in public — 20 (3 last year, none in 2009, 1 in 2008 and 8 in 2007)
• Noise — 11
• Marijuana possession — 5
• Littering — 2
• Smoking in public, where smoking is not allowed — 1

The city also reported that the California Highway Patrol issued 61 tickets for various Vehicle Code violations and impounded nine vehicles.