Encountering Partiers

Posted by admin on Oct 20, 2009 in News | 0 comments

As a security guard for Trinity Western University, JD Desbiens has a passion for this community and a desire to see students have healthy, fulfilled years at Trinity. I asked him a few questions to get a feel for some of his encounters with the Trinity party scene and his general take on it.

How often do you deal with drunk drivers or passengers coming into Trinity at night?
Since there’s no policy in place for screening cars for drunkenness, we can only tell which students have been out partying by clear signs of intoxication. We’ve never had any drunk drivers and most of the time we don’t talk to passengers in the vehicle.

Have you ever had to turn someone away from Trinity for drunkenness?
While most people who come to the security booth are super quiet and well mannered, I have had those in the past who have made a scene and flaunted their drunkenness. Sometimes these people become belligerent and demand that I let them into Trinity. In those rare cases I ensured they had a safe ride elsewhere and turned them back.

We try to make sure that nothing will be disturbing elements of community life. The last thing we want is an intoxicated person running
around dorms.

Do you often get drunk people running around dorm?
Sometimes we’ll get anonymous calls to a lounge if there’s a group of loud people who’ve come back to campus and are flaunting their drunkenness.

Historically, the back 40 has been a party spot, is that still the case?
We do patrol the back 40, and the funny thing is that most people whether or not they’re doing something wrong, simply run away when they see us. They see we are security and they just run. When that happens, I usually just head to the Northwest entrance and wait for them to come out.

There is definitely people out there smoking and drinking. We know Qwanoes can be a bad weekend. If we stumble upon someone smoking or drinking in the back 40, anything they’re doing back there gets reported.

It’s funny though, most students we catch don’t seem to carry ID. When we ask for it, they just plain lie and say they don’t have a license or any student ID on them.

What would you as security want to communicate to students?
People see us as the enemy, someone you have to sneak by. But it’s not about hunting for students, it’s not about confrontation, it’s about giving people what they need.

It’s a communication and image problem that security is doing is trying to stop. The fact is the security cares about the Trinity community and wants to see students in healthy places.