Stewart Tubbs Case Study: The Problematic Party

Stewart L. Tubbs case study about the problematic party, challenges us as participants to identify problems, generate ideas and find solutions. The case study places us on a board comprised of police, city council members, residents, students and faculty, tasked with resolving a universities end of school year party. The issues presented are party size, location, noise, intoxication, time and student, police relations. By using the reflective thinking process, I will attempt to solve the case study by defining the problem, analyzing the causes, identifying criteria and generating, selecting and implementing a solution.

In examination of the problematic party, I see three main issues: The size of the party is too large for a residential neighborhood;

The difficulty in throwing such a large party, is that it inherently brings noise and presents issues of crowd control. “Studied by law enforcement for at least 40 years, crowd control is important due to the dangers posed” (Masterson, 2012). The number of attending the party in Stewart Tubbs case study was, one-thousand to five-thousand people. Noise is also a part of crowd control and is inherent with a gathering of individuals of this large. The large gathering, does not just present issues with crowd control, but challenges a host’ ability to monitor and control the distribution of alcohol and other drugs. Jakeman, McClure and Silver (2015) state, “the results of this research indicate that students frequently attend off-campus parties with high expectations for access to alcohol and high-risk alcohol (Jakeman, Silver, & Molasso, 2014)” (p. 9). The propensity for college to students to drink at parties, presents difficulties even if they were adults. The challenges associated with people who drink, carry over to others who are in attendance and eventually the police, who are ultimately called in to intervene.

The problems which arise in the “problematic party” case study, appear to be the result of tradition and poor planning. The party which is meant to celebrate the end of the school year, not only involves students, but residents and people

By moving the party to a commercial area, not only is crowd noise addressed, but a more confined location aids in controlling the ingress and egress of people and alcohol. In a residential area, the governance of alcohol is nearly impossible, but a new location with controlled entry, ensures more sway of the party’ environment. Therefore, the second most important factor to control is alcohol, followed by police student relations.

As with any proposed changes to the “problematic party”, each presents notable drawbacks. The first being, a change in location has the potential to disenfranchise those who attend religiously. Familiarity, is often the key to success for an annual event and the move forces a change that may be detrimental. Along with disenfranchisement, the change in procedure for alcohol may offend some, by appearing as too heavy handed or restrictive. Although, these controls are in place to protect the integrity of the party, they may not go over well with the attendees, in conjunction with the increased monitoring.

Muller (2015)