Recently, the Madison Police Department released a detailed report on crime and arrests at 2011’s Mifflin Street Block Party. Their recommendation for the future echoed a line Mayor Paul Soglin has been spouting for months: Shut it down.
Completely shutting down any and all parties on Mifflin Street would be impossible. Residents of the street will still host keg parties in their backyards no matter what measures MPD takes.
Instead of shutting it down, the city should work with Mifflin Street residents to make a safer event for everyone involved. There are a few easy ways to accomplish this.
The city needs to recognize and accept what the party has become. It is now an event centered around alcohol. The MPD knows this, having noted it several times in their report. If police accept that students will drink heavily, they can focus on keeping students safe, as opposed to spending time issuing tickets to students who accidentally step onto the sidewalk with a cup of beer, as has been done in past years.
The city also must do away with the street use permit. Allowing open containers in the street and statewide advertising via the event’s sponsorship invited people with no connection to the University of Wisconsin or Madison to come to the event. Of the 162 total arrests this year, only 37 were UW students. Clearly, it is not the students who care about our community causing the problems.
The city should also get the university involved. UW does its part to help on Halloween by not allowing guests in dorms. If they took this measure on the weekend of Mifflin, it would surely help to curb some of the problems.
With students and the city working together, we can make an event that is fun and safe for everyone. What will not work is shutting students out of the discussion, because frankly, we will show up and party anyway. What especially will not work is taking measures to ensure that people who have no connection to or love for our community feel welcome.
It’s our event. Give it back to us, and let us show the city we can do it right.