YELLOWSTONE NOT ONLY STUDENT-PROBLEMATIC AREA

The students getting attention by misbehaving and disrespecting our town north of campus must be the same ones who have taken over the nightlife of Ellensburg.

I am a downtown businessman who, since self-employed, often works many and late hours. I’ve noticed the same kind of disrespect from students that’s been getting press lately for years; downtown. There have been write-ups on riots, City meetings on the vomit-stained bricks, and there is an occasional “half-empty beer bottle seen loitering in a downtown planter” mentioned in the blotter. I have had numerous items stolen from my business-front. But how about the attitude you get from the students sitting on a bar-stool?

Ellensburg used to have a “classy” nightlife, in my opinion. Live music used to not be so uncommon, I’ve met my share of “town folk” downtown for only living here 12 years, I even taught myself to play pool in downtown Ellensburg. Lately, I dare venture downtown after 10. Not merely because I was accosted and beaten by 5 college-aged kids last year, not just because I have had numerous valuable items stolen off my person, not only because you can rarely get a drink in a timely fashion without swimming through seas of students that don’t like to sit down for long. I’ve seen the litter, the vomit stains, urinating in alleys, bars catering to students who make it a game to “out-drink” their classmates using their parent’s plastic.

The main reason I don’t go downtown at night is because I don’t enjoy it. Having a drink after work used to be a reward. Do these student drinkers have any idea what it means to reward yourself for a good days work? No. They don’t respect me when I’m doing it! Perhaps this is also the cause of the problems north of campus homeowners are dealing with. These students have never owned a home, so they don’t know how to respect a homeowner.

What happens when this disrespect extends to their country? They join the Taliban! Doesn’t the University have any classes on being good “town folk?”

Christopher Hobbs