SLO residents played ‘home defense’ as St. Fratty’s Day partiers damaged residences
In the early hours of Saturday morning’s St. Fratty’s Day party, fourth-year Cal Poly student Chloe Mickelsen was keeping tabs on the growing crowds outside when she heard the sound of footsteps on her rooftop.
When she went outside, she found a mass of revelers decked out in Irish green stomping around on top of her Hathway Avenue home, Mickelsen said.
Not long after, unable to control the flood of people running through her yard and house, Mickelsen said she and her roommates resorted to barricading doors in an effort to keep her home from suffering damage, which eventually included broken gutters, furniture, shingles and fencing, along with trampled landscaping.
The cherry on top?
The housemates got a noise and partying fine from the San Luis Obispo Police Department, despite making repeated calls for help removing the partiers from their property, Mickelsen said.
“I think the mob mentality really took over because there was no way to punish people,” Mickelsen.
Mickelsen’s rental home was far from the only dwelling damaged in Saturday’s party — and she’s not the only resident being asked to foot the bill.
Other homes and property in the neighborhood were similarly damaged, and dorms at Cal Poly were trashed to the extent that one had to be evacuated for much of Saturday to allow for cleanup and repairs.
Dorm residents face steep damage fines
On Saturday, an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 people turned out for St. Fratty’s Day celebrations held throughout the neighborhood near Cal Poly along Hathway Avenue.
But the destruction was not limited to the off-campus areas.
Muir Hall, a student resident hall near the center of campus, was trashed by partygoers on the way to and from the party, residents of the building told The Tribune.
Muir Hall residents Aidan Gotch and Caden Prichard said they were away from the dorm for parties and returned to ruined hallways with missing ceiling tiles and fire systems.
Gotch said he and other Muir residents were told by university representatives they would be charged for the damage, with repair bills costing in the four-digit range, he said.
University Housing employees told residents that there was “nothing that we can do about it until we find whoever did it, which is extremely unrealistic,” Gotch said. “We know it’s dozens of people that did it, people that didn’t go here.”
Several dorm and neighborhood residents said they believed that out-of-town visitors both caused the damage and contributed to the higher-than-normal turnout this year.
Freshman Wan Roothman said he was in his dorm when partiers began causing chaos in the hallway, punching out ceiling tiles and breaking into dorm rooms on their way to the neighborhood party.
“Right before everybody left, that’s when everything happened,” Roothman said. “But most of the kids that were breaking stuff were not residents.”
Following the party, Cal Poly president Jeffrey Armstrong said he was “disappointed and disgusted” in the behavior that damaged the buildings, which was severe enough to warrant an evacuation of around 300 students.
Armstrong also noted that students “were a large portion” of the thousands who gathered at the massive block party off-campus that damaged cars and property.
“These selfish and harmful actions are unacceptable for individuals who have been granted the privilege to study, live and work in the Cal Poly community,” he said. “It is confounding and deeply disturbing that a portion of our own students so ignorantly and callously destroyed parts of our campus — including the very places they and so many other students live.“
When reached for comment Monday, Cal Poly spokesperson Keegan Koberl told The Tribune that the university would not be releasing any additional details regarding the damage on campus at this time.
”I can tell you that the university is taking this weekend’s activities very seriously, is assessing the situation and will hold students who participated in illegal activity or activity that violates our student conduct policies accountable,” Koberl said.
Residential neighborhoods report increased destruction
Like Mickelsen, Hathway Avenue resident Samantha Avalos spent most of Saturday morning playing “home defense,” and like Mickelsen, she and her roommates could not hold back the flood of people who crashed through her house.
“We were in front barricading, and I honestly don’t really know what happened, but it looks like somebody took a knife and tried to pick the lock,” Avalos said. “It looks like it was all scrambled, so for the last few days we’ve been climbing in and out of the window because the door wouldn’t open.”
She estimated more than 100 people at a time used her home’s roof as a dance floor at one point, after people discovered they could reach the roof by climbing the fences bordering the property.
Gutters, shingles and power connectors were all seriously damaged by the crush of people, while the house’s Internet connection has been knocked out ever since one person climbed on — and subsequently snapped — a cable running from the roof to a street pole, Avalos said.
Avalos said she and her roommates were lucky to not receive the same $1,700 fines many other homes along Hathway Avenue got from police.
According to San Luis Obispo Police Department neighborhood outreach manager Christine Wallace, a full account of attendance, arrests and damage will be included in a media release next week.
Those who witnessed any crimes or violations of policy were asked to report them to the Dean of Students Office during special hours on Saturday and Sunday.
“It was an incredibly busy weekend, and we are grateful that no one was seriously injured, and we had no fatalities,” Wallace said.
Avalos and Mickelsen both said this year’s conditions were far more destructive — but not just from out-of-town party goers.
“I don’t want to put the blame on out-of-towners,” Avalos said. “I think no one wants to admit that, like, it was their own people that did this.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2024 at 6:03 PM.
