Students going to parties this weekend may encounter more than long lines between them and the keg.

The Ames Police Party Response Team has been out in full force the first few weekends of this semester.

The team has dealt with 36 incidents since becoming active, said Ames Police Cmdr. Randy Kessel.

Although the general consensus among students interviewed has been negative toward the Party Response Team, some students have expressed mixed reactions.

“It wouldn’t bother me because it’s legal,” said Lucas Showman, sophomore in biochemistry. “I think they are just doing their jobs that they should be doing.”

Carrie Black, junior in elementary education, said the police seem to be overreacting since 2004’s Veishea riot.

“A college town is going to have parties — that’s what we do. Veishea should have the proper protection, but get-togethers and house parties should be private things,” she said. “I understand they need to keep everything under control, but it’s a college town and we’re going to have fun.”

Nicole George, junior in child and family services, said she agreed with Black and said the Party Response Team should only visit parties that have extreme problems.

“They should only break up parties if there are fights or if they are way out of control or if there are a lot of underage drinkers,” she said.

Scott Staiert, freshman in pre-business, said the team is a bad idea because they will be dealing with drunk people who aren’t reasonable.

“It’s bad to do that because you’ll be dealing with drunk people and it’s not good to piss off drunk people,” he said. “What’s the reason? Are they looking for underage drinkers or just being party poopers? We’re just having fun.”

The Party Response Team is composed of two officers in plain clothes and two officers in uniform who patrol Ames on Friday and Saturday nights to deal with party disturbance complaints, said Christina Crippen, Ames Police community resource officer.

“Usually dispatch gets a complaint about a party and that’s where we go,” Crippen said. “The complaints vary from guests out peeing on their neighbor’s yard, really loud music and really drunk people, to underage people drinking.”

Crippen said the idea is to educate students on the right way to have a party within the city’s ordinances.

“With all the new students and the beginning of a new semester, we want to get people acquainted with not so much the rules, as the way things should be handled,” she said. “We can’t tell you to stop having a party unless you are breaking the nuisance party ordinance.”

If the team responds to a party with a large number of kegs or underage drinkers, Crippen said she follows up with the landlord.

“We want to make sure the landlords know there was a party with kegs because most landlords have leases that prohibit that,” she said.

Kessel said the team will be active through the weekend of the Iowa State-Iowa game.

“The first few weekends are the busiest,” he said. “After the 17th, the away games will start and we anticipate the activity will ratchet down,” he said. “After that weekend we will re-evaluate to see if we have some problem areas and see what the consensus of the command staff is.”