Halloween celebrations are quite a big thing in Universities. Think lots of students in a relatively small area, with an excuse to dress up and get a wee bit tipsy on some (usually very cheap) wine. The boys can dress up as girls (and invariably they will do this at the drop of a hat – must be something about Uni life!) and the girls can dress up as a sexy…anything really. Nurse, angel, devil, anything that necessitates the wearing of something skintight or revealing. Or preferably both. Well, nowhere is this more popular than in America. Halloween is a huge holiday over there, much more so than in the UK, and they go all out on their celebrations and outfits.
Well, a news story from America reports about the Halloween celebrations at Drew University in New Jersey. During the evening’s revelry six fire extinguishers were discharged in three separate halls of residence. The discharge of the fire extinguishers triggered fire alarms to go off, which in turn led to the evacuation of the dorms, and a response from Madison’s fire department.
Madison’s fire official, Capt. Ed Nunn fined the college $1,000 for each extinguisher that was set off, making a total of $6,000. He said that he had issued the fines to draw attention to a recurring and escalating problem. Twice this year, in October and May, a fire extinguisher had been intentionally discharged in Foster Hall at the University.
Nunn said that setting off extinguishers like this puts a lot of people at risk. There is also concern about the lack of respect for the college’s public safety officers. During the Halloween evacuation of the three dorms where the fire alarms had gone off, there was resistance from some of the students when they tried to clear the entrances for the fire fighters.
Nunn said that there were about 300 students outside the dorms when he arrived on the scene that night, and he had heard students ‘mouthing off’ at the campus public safety officers, who were trying to clear the area. Once the fire fighters arrived, the students did calm down, but it caused a bit of a delay, and in an emergency that could mean the difference between life and death.
The people responsible have not been caught, but the University is still investigating. At the beginning of November, they responded by temporarily changing the ‘quiet hours’ restriction on campus, moving it from 2 a.m. to midnight for the remainder of this semester. Apparently the last few weekends have been much quieter and without incident. Let’s hope they’re all tucked up in their beds behaving themselves then!
