Dining Services reduces late-night hours at the Commons

Tufts Dining Services recently changed the hours of late-night dining at the Commons Deli and Grill on Fridays and Saturdays, after receiving reports of rowdy student behavior.  

At the start of the semester, the Commons was open for late-night meal swipes from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., but cut back according to Isabella Kahhal?, the senator who proposed the late-night meal option.

“The only changes are that now it closes at 1 a.m., and that was due to a bunch of complaints that the [Mayer] Campus Center employees and Campus Center manager had regarding student behavior,” Kahhal?, a freshman, said.

According to Kahhal?, there was one night in the beginning of March that seemed to be pivotal in the change to late-night dining hours. 

“One night all the frat parties got let out at one time, and it was 1 a.m., and there were so many people there that police came in and were like ‘We’re closing it. We’re shutting it down,’” she said. “The line was just crazy, filling the whole area in front of the stairs.”

Kahhal? said that she understood the kind of crowd the Commons would be serving when she came up with the idea for the late-night meal swipe. In the Senate resolution, Kahhal? explained that food and drink should be available to students to decrease the likelihood that Tufts Emergency Medical Service (TEMS) would be needed.

“Every time I went, I was always really happy to see so many people there, but I do recognize that it got pretty rowdy, and I think it is in part due to the fact that many students were intoxicated, and there were a lot of them there,” she said. “I also think it’s due to the poor set up of the physical location.”

Catherine Armistead, a student who uses late-night meal swipes, agreed that the atmosphere could be chaotic.

“People are just really, really drunk,” Armistead, a freshman, said. “One time I was there, and someone was passing out. It’s not the responsibility of the people who are making your food to also be taking care of you.”

Dining Services attempted to limit the number of students in the Commons through the use of pole and rope stanchions, and required students to exit through the side, Kahhal? explained. She said these control methods appeared to be working. 

“Once they could see that there was clearly a very high demand for this, they wanted to make the traffic flow more smooth so that people could actually get food,” she said. 

After seeing the sign notifying students of the hours change, Kahhal? had a meeting with the Director of Dining and Business Services, Patti Klos. According to Kahhal?, Klos said the change was due entirely to the fact that students were rowdy, disrespectful , somewhat threatening to the police who were there for safety and rude to the employees of the Commons. The Daily was unable to reach Klos for comment.

“It’s really unfortunate that these measures had to be taken -- I was really excited about this project,” Kahhale said. “It’s amazing that Dining Services was so cooperative [in] helping this happen in such a quick time, because we only started working on this this past semester.”

Rebekah Waller, another student who uses late-night meal swipes at the Commons, had a more positive view of the change.

“I think it’s good for the employees there because they can return home sooner,” Waller, a freshman, said. “The longer the night goes on, the more intoxicated kids are and the less coherent and less cooperative they are, so it’s good that the employees don’t have to deal with that, at least from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m.” 

According to Kahhal?, finances had nothing to do with the change. She said she believes that Dining Services is excited about the service being offered, something that would not be the case if it was taking a financial toll. 

“I think that [Dining Services] is doing really well because a lot of people want [late-night meal swipes] and students are adding more meals to their meal plans and they expect that more people will purchase a higher meal plan next semester because of this service that’s offered,” Kahhal? said.

Despite the shorter hours, Kahhale is optimistic about the future of late-night dining at Tufts.

“[Klos and I] are still talking,” she said. “We’re hoping to maybe discuss potential ways in the future that we can solve this issue. Moving it to Dewick is one potential solution because it could accommodate more people and, there [are] more grills there. We’re going to keep working on it, trying to figure out the best solution that benefits everybody.”