The students come back to Boston and Mission Hill in the fall, and with the students typically comes a surge in house parties and neighborhood disturbances.
At the September meeting of the Community Alliance of Mission Hill, several CAMH members addressed the issues, particularly on Sunset Street. David Greenup played a video of loud groups of college students outside a Sunset Street address from earlier in September.
Greenup noted that Boston University distributed a letter to its students from the Boston Police Department asking students to respect the neighborhoods, and Greenup said it would be nice to see the other local colleges do something similar.
“Also, we are going to talk to (District 8 City Councilor) Sharon Durkan about the possibility of using 311 instead of 911 because that would end up helping us document these calls,” said Greenup. “Right now, if three people call about a particular property, it is only listed, and with three of these people calling in, they would find out it is a bunch of people calling in, not just one.”
Greenup said he would also like to see a greater possibility of people being fined for keeping a disorderly house when there are multiple reported disturbances.
“That has to do with the owner, not the students themselves,” said Greenup. “Lastly, this particular landlord (at 22-24 Sunset), owes $56,000 in tickets and he has 500-plus tickets. Why are we giving out tickets when we don’t enforce them?”
In addition to the noise disturbances, Greenup said there are also overflowing trash cans at the properties, which can attract rats.
“Let’s try to solve the problem by enforcing some of the existing regulations we have,” said Greenup.
Boston Police Officer Michael O’Rourke, the community services officer for Mission Hill, said he received the videos from the Sunset Street address the day before the CAMH meeting and was going to reach out to the property manager with the concerns. He said once it was determined who held the party, those students and the landlord would be held accountable.
“As far as problem properties go, any individual who has multiple calls to their location, complaints are all tracked, they are referred to the problem property list,” said O’Rourke.
O’Rourke said he gets a list of problem properties every Monday, and if he sees videos or repeat offenders listed, there will be summons issued for keeping a disorderly house.
“The courts will then deal with the students who are involved,” he said.
O’Rourke also recommended that if there is a problem with a disorderly house or disturbance to call 911, and then follow up with an email to him so that the issues can be tracked.
During the meeting, several residents noted that the students who live off-campus are residents of Boston, and that the same rules that apply to Boston residents should apply to them.
During the meeting, Durkan noted that many of the reported disturbances are from the same properties with the same landlords.
“I think we need a specific letter to those specific landlords from the police, from the city,” Durkan said.
In other business, the CAMH also heard from Scott Prince, Ray Butler and Michael Vaughan, who are taking over the Flann O’Briens space in Brigham Circle on Tremont Street. The restaurant was closed during the pandemic, and the partners are looking to reopen Flann O’Briens by the end of the year.