Article from the Waterlo Chronicle
November 12th 2008

Irresponsible students should be charged for crimes




Letters

Nov 12, 2008


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Students have been getting away with too much.

There seems to be a "hands off the students" policy at the City of Waterloo that allows them a free hand to wreck property, break bylaws and commit crimes (which they probably think are only pranks).

For example, every weekend the safety fence on Ezra Avenue, erected to keep safe the site of the new student housing project, is knocked down.

This is not a prank. It is a crime to remove signs or fences or plastic cones that delineate dangerous territory.

Students routinely knock over federal mailboxes which is a crime.

Other offences include:

• building huge fires in driveways and backyards that endanger surrounding houses

• vandalizing cars, houses, signs and other private property

• urinating on people's gardens and property

• breaking noise bylaws by partying and screaming until 3 a. m.

• drinking on public property such as sidewalks and streets

• coming home from Waterloo pubs and parties drunk and kicking everybody's garbage pails and recycling boxes into the middle of the street.

Just walk down Ezra or Seagram Drive any Tuesday morning — it’s a total pig pen.

What is this attitude that they are not subject to the laws of the land? If an engineering student is caught and gets a criminal record, he/she cannot join the profession. Tough luck, if you do the crime, you do the time — and part of "the time" is to have a criminal record and suffer the consequences, like not being able to travel to certain countries or join a profession. Too bad — they should have thought of that before being an idiot.

When questioned recently a student said that he thought this was a "student area."

Hello — there is no such thing as a "student area" where it's OK to flaunt the law.

Owners, residents, tenants and responsible students are sick and tired of being harassed by bunches of drunks doing whatever comes into their small minds.

When complaints are made, the police claim they cannot catch them at their shenanigans. Well, don't come up in a cruiser; instead, patrol on foot.

It doesn't take a detective to catch a gaggle of stupefied drunks stumbling home at 2 a. m., smashing, vandalizing and yelling at the top of their lungs.

Catch them, charge them, process them and give criminal records to those of them who deserve it.

It's what we pay for.



Donald A. Fraser , Waterloo