What will solve London's student street party problem? No one knows for sure

If it was just a matter of getting the right people together in one room, then London's student street party problem would already be solved. 

Every organization with a significant stake in dealing with out-of-control outdoor parties attended a meeting Thursday at a church in Old North. The deputy chief of police, the fire chief and the head of the ambulance were there, as was the head of the city's bylaw enforcement department. The ward councillor, members of Western University's administration and the head of the student council all showed up. 

Since the spring they've been meeting as a task force in hopes of coming up with ways to at least curtail the now-annual bash on Broughdale Avenue, a massive illegal street party that has become dangerous and almost impossible to police.

Growing since 2013, last year's party drew 20,000 people to Broughdale, a small residential street of houses mostly converted to student rental properties. More than 50 revellers ended up in hospital and the city spent $200,000 policing and cleaning up the mess left behind. 

But while the task force and its overriding spirit of collaboration is evident, it hasn't produced what anyone believes is a surefire, silver-bullet solution to stopping the party or even paring back its numbers. 

Lynn Logan is Western's vice-president of operations and finance. She said it's unrealistic to expect the number of party goers to decrease at this year's fake homecoming bash, which will happen on the last Saturday of September. 

"The reason we're saying that we don't think the numbers will go down is because we've seen the escalation in Waterloo," she said. 

Upward trend for student street parties

She's referring to a St. Patrick's Day student street party there that drew an estimated 33,000 party goers after attracting 22,000 the year before. 

Logan said while the increased collaboration among all affected groups is a step forward, they're up against a North American-wide trend toward increasingly large outdoor student parties fuelled in part by social media. 

For the second year, Western has programmed an on-campus concert called Purple Fest timed to compete with, and draw students away from, the now-infamous Broughdale party. 

So far 8,000 Purple Fest tickets have sold with headliner A$AP Rocky proving to be an effective draw. Logan would like to see the sales reach 14,000 but admits there are no guarantees that will happen, or if it will put a damper on Broughdale.

"We're not raising expectations that the [Broughdale] numbers will go down," said Logan.

USC president Bardia Jalayer is also hopeful, but also trying to temper expectations. 

"We're trying to make sure that students still have the opportunity to celebrate their purple pride and we're just trying to make sure that we're shifting the culture to a safer alternative to the unsanctioned street parties," he said.

"However, we'd like to add that our students are adults, they can make their own decisions. We're trying to make [Purple Fest] as attractive as possible." 

City council this year raised fines for putting on an illegal street party. Local politicians also made it possible for the city to go after party organizers to recoup the extra costs of policing the mayhem and cleaning up after it. 

As well, Western has amended its student code of conduct to include off-campus events. The university has also stepped up the communication to new students, warning them about the possible consequences of swelling the numbers on Broughdale. But Logan says any thought that a student would get expelled for drinking beer on the street isn't realistic. 

"It is for very egregious acts," she said of the amended code of conduct. "Endangering the safety of others, that's really where we're leaning." 

Trish McIntyre, London's deputy police chief, said police preparations for the weekend are extensive. She said the force has spent a lot of time trying to learn lessons from large street parties at Queen's, McMaster and Wilfrid Laurier universities.

"We'll have more resources on the ground," she said. "You'll see improvements, the planning is enormous, incident command is at a high level." 

Officers from York Region (about 40) and Hamilton (about 20) are being called in to help.

"It's just to know we have capacity if it's needed," she said.