Interventions at Drunken Student Parties Cost Town More Than Dollars

The following letter was sent to the Amherst Town Council on May 3, 2026.

Last Saturday (5/2), a Kentucky Derby party at a house on South Pleasant Street got wildly out of hand.  Hundreds of inebriated revelers were eventually dispersed by the police, who showed up in at least 10 police cars, including three State Police units. While it is a virtual certainty that many of the partiers were underage drinkers, it remains to be seen how many were charged, or even reported to UMass authorities for subsequent action.

Amherst residents in many work-force neighborhoods routinely put up with the noise, litter, public urinating and commotion of student parties.  But even the residents in Amherst’s tonier neighborhoods are currently picking up the tab for massive police responses like the one on May 2. 

Why? 

While it is true that Amherst can assess fines up to $300 for a noise/nuisance violation, this does not cover the cost of a large police intervention, and it is typically not levied on landlords, but on the tenant(s).  With so little “skin in the game”, there is little disincentive for landlords to rent to students.

The town needs a policy that would charge the landlords not just tenants when parties get out of hand.  The financial cost of having even one cruiser, let alone 10, show up and spend an hour or two at a party is not trivial.  It is difficult to determine how tying up local police resources in cases like this interferes with the police responding to other calls, and those costs are not strictly financial.

If Town Council cannot bring itself to more effectively address the incursion of student rentals into residential neighborhoods, it should at least craft a policy to avoid residents having to pick up the costs of rowdy partying and to avoid tacitly allowing underaged binge drinking. If landlords are potentially liable for the expense of police responding to nuisance calls to their properties, perhaps then they will resist the temptation to maximize their rental incomes by charging outrageous per-bedroom rents to students.  At the least, it will behoove them to be more judicious in renting and managing their rentals.  And just maybe it will spur some to instead lease to families at reasonable rates, limiting student rental sprawl and easing the shortage of workforce housing.

John Varner

John Varner is a resident of Amherst’s District 3