Editor,
Picnic Day is progressively becoming more about binge drinking in public and less about the open house of UC Davis and its community that it was established to be.
I have only been here five years, but each year, I see more people passed out on lawns, drinking on the streets of downtown Davis, driving around drunk and cursing uncontrollably. Public intoxication and drunk driving are both illegal in Davis last time I checked – or is there a one-day amnesty of the law that I haven’t heard about?
This was the worst Picnic Day that I have witnessed so far. Community members and families who would normally spend their weekends downtown and are always welcome on campus cannot go downtown for fear of exposing their children to this poor behavior and the inherent danger.
The students should consider reining themselves in. Or the Picnic Day board should consider reining them in. Or the UC should. Or the City of Davis should. There are at least four different sets of stakeholders responsible for this, and I haven’t witnessed anyone except for the well-behaved students actually doing anything about it. And all they can do is not contribute to the disrespectable behavior.
I understand and have witnessed Picnic Day to be business as usual on campus. It’s mostly clean, with families and organizations doing what they always do and making a good thing of it. (Although I hear from friends there were bad parts of campus, too.) If we limit our good behavior to campus and let our poor behavior exist off campus, are we really doing good for the community?
I was actually going to leave Davis for Picnic Day this year because I didn’t want to be around for the mayhem. I changed my mind, stayed and here I am writing this letter. Someone needs to control this.
Sincerely,
THADDEUS HUNT
UC Davis alumnus
