Are you 21 or older? Do you live with someone under 21? Do you live with more than one other person? Do you have alcohol in your residence? Do you listen to music?

If you said yes to any of these questions, you should be concerned with the current Social Host Ordinance that is being put before the County of Santa Barbara’s Board of Supervisors.  An “unruly gathering” consists of 5 or more people according to this ordinance. On top of this, if you can be shown to have ‘reason to know’ of a minor consuming alcohol at this so called “gathering”, you can be cited and fined up to $2000.

What’s worse, we as students came together last year and showed the Board of Supervisors that the draft of the Social Host Ordinance they had proposed would be disproportionately disadvantageous to the tenants of Isla Vista. We organized, mobilized, and educated people on the facts as to why this ordinance would create untold consequences for Isla Vista’s population.

However, the draft that is coming before the Board of Supervisors on June 1st, this Tuesday, has addressed a few of the student concerns but still completely fails to meet the standard students want from a law they will have to live under.  The draft scoffs at the work that peer educators at Student Health have made trying to make positive change.  A group of student leaders tried to work with the people crafting this new draft to make it more amicable to the housing situation in Isla Vista.  They claimed that our insights were little more than hyperbolic hypotheses of how this ordinance can be applied and disregarded them.

In response to this latest draft, we will be going before the Board of Supervisors to make our case for the residents of Isla Vista and our tricky housing situation.  If you are interested in helping out, being a part of this effort, or need a ride please email evpla@as.ucsb.edu. Vans will leave Embarcadero Hall promptly at 9:15 am. This WILL impact you!

Ashley Day
Special Projects Coordinator
Office of the Internal Vice President
UCSB Associated Students

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