Miami University students celebrated Green Beer Day (GBD) this year, just as they have for over 65 years. Students were decked out in and consuming all things green on March 15 from sunrise to sunset. But, compared to last year, the festivities were tame.
From 12 a.m. on March 15 to 7 a.m. on March 16, the Oxford Police Department (OPD) cited 63 total offenses compared to 81 during last year's Green Beer Day.
Similarly, Oxford Fire Department (OFD) saw a drop in emergency calls. Out of the 13 calls to OFD this year, only three were alcohol related, compared to 17 alcohol-related calls out of 32 total in 2017, wrote OFD Chief John Detherage in an email to The Miami Student.
One student was arrested for an OVI around 8 a.m. by the Ohio State Highway Patrol who help patrol Oxford on GBD.
Overall, OPD Chief John Jones said it was a fairly mild day.
"I think -- I hope -- it means that the Green Beer Day tradition is dying," Jones said. "We always increase our staff and always prepare for the worst, but especially in the mornings, it seems to have died down."
What's most notable, Jones said, is a decrease in underage alcohol violations. There were only nine this year compared to 33 in 2017. Seven of last year's citations were handed out during an enforcement detail that happened two days before GBD.
"It's really reflective of the students' behavior and the personable accountability that they have," Jones said. "For the most part, in most situations we encountered yesterday, we were not met with belligerent students. Most people were cooperative -- not everybody, but most people."
Jones added that the intensity of any given GBD is weather dependent. This year, house parties started to ramp up around 2:00 p.m. as the sun came out, leading to 21 noise violations.
"We did start to see our officers be more proactive out there and addressing issues such as noise, litter and those types of violations," Jones said.
Throughout the day, OPD stayed active on Twitter and other social media sites, updating followers on notable citations and other strange incidents. In one tweet, @OxfordOhioPD shared a photo of officers interacting with students outside a house party.
https://twitter.com/OxfordOhioPD/status/974385070235627520
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Jones said the police department has intentionally worked to increase their social media presence in the last few years.
"We kind of took it to a new level this year for Green Beer Day," he said. "It is challenging to stay up to do some of those things because the people who are posting those social media posts are also trying to work or trying to handle a party, but there's more emphasis placed on it."
Shortly after OPD's house party citation tweet, they retweeted a photo from a group of party-goers, posing with Lieutenant Lara Fenning.
"Social media creates the more positive vibes so that when we do show up, maybe some of those students have heard about some of the things we've done," Jones said. "We're not there to make everybody miserable. As long as they're cooperative with us, we're generally friendly back."
davisa10@miamioh.edu
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