Community and student leaders have made many suggestions about how to combat large house parties that have been considered one of the main causes of last year’s Veishea riot.

On Wednesday, ISU President Gregory Geoffroy made a call to re-evaluate the “dry” Veishea policy prohibiting alcohol use by those of all ages on campus throughout the celebration.

The statement is an example of how community members and recommendations from the 2004 Veishea task force have affected administrators’ thoughts.

“If the president decides to loosen restrictions, the rationale of that would be to spread out activities and prevent large parties,” Ames Police Chief Loras Jaeger said. “It’s hard to say if it will have any effect — the best way to evaluate that is to look at it over a one- to two-year period.”

Jaeger was the director of the Department of Public Safety when Iowa State hosted its first dry Veishea, and said he did not notice a big impact on off-campus parties.

“So many of those large parties are regulated by the weather,” Jaeger said. “Saturday night of last year’s Veishea was extremely warm and sunny, so everyone was outside.”

Dave Stout, Government of the Student Body College of Business senator, said he is confident a “wet” Veishea would have an impact on the house party scene.

“You won’t see the 200- or 300-person parties, based on my intuition, but there are still going to be large house parties,” Stout said. “However, there won’t be those parties that exist because you cannot drink anywhere else, which is where you get the ones that cause problems.”

George Belitsos, director of Youth and Shelter Services of Story County, said that as a former resident of the Campustown community, he hopes Veishea stays alcohol-free.

“I don’t know why we would want to go back to a day when Veishea became a time for the fraternities to have large drinking parties as part of their celebration,” he said.

Belitsos said he worries the wrong message about alcohol can reach impressionable kids because those parties are very visible.

Two other popular plans to lessen the effects of off-campus parties during Veishea include allowing minors into Campustown bars and moving nightly activities to a different location.

Iowa City allows minors to gain entrance to bars, but the effect on house parties is not clearly known.

“I’ve heard that it does cut down on large parties off campus from some students,” Jaeger said. “Others have told me that they go to the bars, and at 2 a.m. they go to the house parties.”

GSB Vice President William Rock said allowing minors to enter bars would cut down on the size of house parties, but there are drawbacks.

“The problem is that the bars do close eventually,” Rock said.