Last night, students and citizens gathered at Bowling Green City Council’s open forum to discuss potential changes to the nuisance party ordinance.

The potential change that received the most attention was the adoption of a stricter definition of “neighboring,” when referring to problems or damages that occur to property around the house a party is held at.

In the current nuisance party ordinance, neighboring is not specified by a specific distance or number of land plots around a house. This initial version of the amendment has proposed neighboring be specified to any property within 100 yards of the house where a party is at.

USG President Alex Wright attended the open forum, and believes that while students who throw parties should be held accountable for their guests, 100 yards is a big area to watch over.

“A football field is pretty far, maybe cut that in half,” Wright said, referencing a proposal he made to City Council to consider the length of 50 yards around a house instead.

“One hundred yards is pretty far for me to police to my own party,” Wright said.

Also in attendance was Gordy Heminger, employee in the Campus Involvement Office, who is running in the May Democratic primary election for November’s Ward 1 representative seat.

Heminger felt encouraged by what he saw as potential compromise by City Council with Bowling Green’s students.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m satisfied … but the 100 yard mark is a good starting point,” Heminger said. “If people are having a party, they should be responsible, but also shouldn’t be held accountable for something that happens a good distance away.”

Though last night’s discussion of the 100-yard distance was helpful, Heminger said student opinion on the issue can never be fully gauged until City Council members agree to hold an open forum for the issue on University grounds.

“I strongly think that having an open forum [at BG City Council] isn’t conducive to getting a lot of students there,” Heminger said. “I’d like to see an open forum held in the Union. I think it’d be great if USG would sponsor something like that.”

Bowling Green residents also attended last night’s open forum to voice their opinion on potential changes to the nuisance party ordinance.

John Zanfardino came with an initial curiosity about the new distances for the law, and said 100 yards seemed pretty big.

“50 [yards] seems to be fairer to me,” Zanfardino said.

The potential for friendly relationships between residents and students living nearby was brought up by BG resident Pamela Gleason.

Gleason recommended that students who are having a party let their neighbors know ahead of time what will be going on, and provide them with a phone number to call the student’s house if the residents feel things are getting out of hand.

Zanfardino thinks this type of effort by students would go a long way in building respect between neighbors.

“I live in an area that’s a blend of residents and students,” Zanfardino said. “That level of consideration, that’d be really nice to see.”

Other residents may not feel comfortable dealing with students when a party next door becomes overwhelming.

Les Barber, a BG resident and former English professor at the University, has had negative experience with parties near his home, and was happy with the proposed 100 yard responsibility for a party host.

“We’ve had renters in the past who’ve approached us beforehand and let us know they’re having a party,” Barber said. “But with the big parties, when they get going — especially with the warm weather — there’s not much you can do then as an adjacent resident.”

Ward 2 Representative Mike Zickar, who has led the efforts to amend the nuisance party ordinance, is hesitant to embrace the initial 100-yard distance.

The amendment received its third and final reading last night, and was tabled indefinitely by City Council.

Tabling potential legislation allows representatives more time to look into the intricacies of the amendment; however, there is also the possibility that an amendment tabled indefinitely will never be discussed again.

Zickar does not think this will be the case. He just wanted as much time as necessary to gauge opinion of constituents, and felt that 100 yards may saddle party hosts with an unfair amount of responsibility for their guests.

“I think 100 yards would expand the power [of this law],” Zickar said, “and that’s not what I want to do.”