I was really disturbed yesterday to see a letter published in this paper blaming all of Veishea’s troubles on the rock group Kiss. The letter stated that “the stem of the problem last Veishea was having the Kiss concert on the Saturday night of Veishea weekend.”

This statement shows a blatant disregard of fact and reason. Let’s be honest with ourselves now — the problem with last year’s Veishea was the murder of an innocent man named Harold “Uri” Sellers.

His murderers, Michael Runyon and Luke Abrams, weren’t in town to see Kiss. They were here to party and have a good time. Unfortunately for everyone, their good time led to an atrocious act that will haunt this university for a long time to come.

The letter pointed out that the Kiss concert drew “thousands of Kiss fans [to] Ames for the concert.” The author then goes on to assert that “Kiss fans could cause havoc in heaven” and basically blames Kiss for all of our current Veishea woes.

The letter’s author neglects to mention that over 550 people were ticketed or arrested last year. It also neglects to mention that out of those 550 people, only five people were arrested at the Kiss concert. That is not a misprint. Only five people, and this information comes straight from the mouth of Department of Public Safety Director Loras Jaeger.

The Kiss concert at Hilton Coliseum was attended by a capacity crowd of 12,500 people. Out of that large crowd only five people were arrested. That is less than 0.5 percent. Certainly this information disproves that Kiss fans, those people who “could cause havoc in heaven,” were behind our problems during last year’s Veishea.

The Kiss concert was a great opportunity for Ames. Just think about how many of those fans pumped money into this city’s economy that evening. How many of those fans ate at a local restaurant? How many of those fans had to pump gasoline into their tanks before leaving Ames? How many of those fans bought food or drink at the convenience store while paying for all that gas they bought?

There is no way to compile accurate statistics of the type of money spent by Kiss fans after the concert. But I can assure you of two things — more than five people pumped money into this city’s economy, and more than five people spent $20 or more while they were in this city.

So no, I don’t believe that Kiss is responsible for all of the arrests made during Veishea last year. I don’t hold them responsible for the death of Uri Sellers, either. Those claims are completely unsubstantial. Obviously, the author relied on her stereotypical view of the heavy metal fans to support her opinion.

I will admit that I saw quite a few people drinking alcohol outside of the venue before the concert. But I saw a lot more people staggering around or passed out in the grass outside of Greek Row and other on- and off- campus locations (like the area around the Campanille) on Friday night, a full 24 hours before the Kiss concert even began.

So no, we can’t blame all of the drunkenness on Kiss fans either. Who can we blame these problems on, then? We can blame these problems on ourselves. We are the ones that encourage our friends from outside Ames to come out here and party with us. We are the ones who drink to excess, vomit all over the place and pass out on the lawn.

According to DPS and Ames Police Department statistics (which were published in the Daily the week following Veishea), more than 550 people were ticketed or arrested during last year’s Veishea. Two hundred sixty-four people were cited for possession of alcohol underage. Thirty-nine people were arrested for underage possession of alcohol. Overall, the ratio between student and non-student run-ins with the law was roughly 4-to-5.

So no, we can’t blame non-students for our troubles either. As much as we all hate to admit it, the only people we have to blame are ourselves. The problem is the consumption of alcohol over the entire span of the weekend in a small area that is overflowing with police officers (both in uniform and plain clothes).

The letter published yesterday stated that “the administration would like to blame alcohol, but I think their efforts are going to cause more problems than help the situation.” Well, the administration is correct in blaming alcohol. The administration’s efforts are a logical result of our quest for drunkenness during Veishea weekend. If we didn’t all seek to get drunk that weekend (kind of like lemmings all rushing toward the sea), the Ames community and the university administration wouldn’t have to take steps to prevent public intoxication and underage possession.

Of course, there are no simple answers to this dilemma. As students seeking to get trashed, we oppose the limitations set upon us. We say that we will support a dry Veishea, yet we all know, as soon as Veishea rolls around, we’ll be making beer runs every hour.

We fear that Veishea will be taken away from us if we don’t comply with the dry Veishea rules. Don’t be deceived. Veishea brings too much money and publicity into the community to kill it off.

If you don’t like the university taking away your right to drink alcohol, then do something about it. Drink anyway. Smoke pot. Shoot heroin. Eat acid. But be forewarned that there are going to be a lot of police officers around to bust you for doing that as well. My suggestion? Leave Ames for the weekend and party somewhere else.

But whatever you do, don’t go out, get drunk, get arrested and then blame all of Veishea’s problems on whatever musicians are going to play at this year’s festival. It’s irresponsible and it’s rude.

---

Ben Jones is a sophomore in English from Ankeny.