Campustown wristbands to return next Veishea
Photo: William Deaton/Iowa State Daily
Campustown resident Nick Appel, junior in civil engineering, talks with regional manager, Sean Crain, about signing up for the wristbands that Campustown is requiring everyone to wear during Veishea weekend. Campustown residents must be wearing a wristband in order to enter a building owned by the property and can receive up to three more wristbands for guests. They are having security guards outside of each property from April 18 through April 21, 2013 to enforce the policy of keeping resident safe during Veishea.
April 23, 2013
People trying to enter Campustown properties this past weekend probably noticed something different in terms of security measures.
Campustown Property Management issued wristbands for its residents and their guests April 18 the morning of April 21 to control the influx of visitors to the 22 properties the company owns and to improve security measures for the weekend.
“This was very successful for us,” said Alex Sidorowych, assistant manager for Campustown Property Management. “Compared to past Veisheas, it was a hundred times better [and] by far one of the smoothest Veisheas we’ve had.”
Sidorowych pointed out the goal of wristbands was to secure the safety of residents and the company’s properties. He stated that they had a significant drop in property destruction; he also said that they did not expect to have no damage to any of their properties, but there was only minimal damage done.
Security guards, who were placed at each building entrance, checked people trying to enter the building and turned away people who did not have the proper wristband.
“We also had six security guards going around and roaming our 22 buildings on Friday and Saturday night,” Sidorowych said.
Sidorowych stated that their security guards did find people trying to enter the properties using counterfeit wristbands. Campustown Property employees worked closely with the police on the issue of fake wristbands, Sidorowych said.
Campustown Property Management employees monitored social media sites for people talking about having and using counterfeit wristbands. If fake wristbands were attempted to be used to gain entrance at properties owned by Campustown Property Management, they were confiscated by the security guards.
“I saw all different kinds of counterfeit wristbands,” Sidorowych said. “The fake ones had different fonts from ours; some of them didn’t have numbers like ours and some you could just easily tell were fake.”
Sidorowych said that some of their residents were displeased with the wristband policy and that some were just looking for an explanation for the policy. He also stated that on the Monday morning after Veishea, they had a person come in and compliment the company on the wristband policy.
Some Campustown residents saw this wristband policy as a nuisance.
“It was very inconvenient for me and other people,” said Evan Tentinger, a sophomore in chemical engineering and Legacy Towers resident. “It’s not that big of a deal now — afterwards — but it was just annoying.”
Tentinger said that he and other building residents understood the company’s point of view but saw it as being unlawful and going against their lease agreement.
“It seemed like it was kind of unlawful for them to do this. Potentially, they are not allowing our guests to come in,” Tentinger said.
Sidorowych says that the wristband policy is something that Campustown Property Management plans to use again for next Veishea, but there might be a few tweaks made to the current idea.
