Downtown bar battles vandals
Jodi Van de Mark, a manager at Amici Italian Caf? in downtown Milledgeville, expects the usual situations that often happen in bars: sweeping messy tables, washing dishes and, of course, dealing with customers who’ve had too much to drink.
But Van de Mark never anticipated the gross amount of vandalism and destruction she’s dealt with during the past year.
“It started after we refinished the bathrooms. People were punching through the walls, so we installed all hardwood walls so when they punched them, it would hurt their hand,” she said. “And I think what happens is when they see something new like that, they don’t pay attention, but when one person writes or carves or breaks something, it’s like a chain reaction.”
That chain reaction eventually led to broken fixtures, heavy graffiti, a broken front window and a situation that she never thought she’d encounter.
“What made us most upset was when a couple of guys went into our kitchen during one of our busier nights and stole a container of ranch dressing, some packets of cream cheese, a to-go salad and apparently a couple loaves of bread,” she said. “They took the ranch dressing and threw it all over the walls. They unwrapped the toilet paper rolls all over the sink and floors. They took out all the paper towels and threw them all over the place.”
After discussing the events with the staff, Van de Mark discovered who committed the act. In fact, they left the stolen bread at their table when they left.
She says she suspects it involved two GC&SU students. Fed up with this vandalism and other mounting issues involving GC&SU students, she contacted Dr. Bruce Harshbarger, vice president of Student Affairs; Tom Miles, director of Student Activities; and Ron Lunk, assistant director of Student Activities.
“I took them to the bathroom and they told me that many of the carvings are fraternity code names and numbers, so they could look at them and tell exactly who wrote them,” Van de Mark said. “I think they were shocked that it was all true.”
Van de Mark said she has not contacted law enforcements about the incidents, but the CEO of Amici has written a letter to the school and the Greek organization involved.
Harshbarger said he’s working on a solution. “Among some of the carvings in the bathroom wall were the letters of two GC&SU fraternities, so Ron [Lunk] sent out an e-mail to the Greek presidents and I met last [Sunday] night with one of the groups,” he said. “The group with whom I met indicated their support for trying to address the problem–they agreed to meet with Ms. Van de Mark and use their influence on campus to discourage vandalism and try to identify the persons responsible.”
Harshbarger said this type of vandalism is not uncommon, but is difficult to fight.
“Graffiti on walls is certainly not a new problem. It’s not been reported to my office in the past, though I would presume that from time to time it flares up for a number of downtown businesses. Even when the names or affiliations of certain people appear on the walls it is difficult to assign the responsibility to those individuals. As with littering, it almost has to be observed in progress to make a viable legal case.”
If responsibility can be determined, Harshbarger said he’d deal with it. “Vandalism is both a crime and a GC&SU Honor Code offense. The judicial system at GC&SU is built upon the concept of teaching personal responsibility that is characterized by reason, respect and responsibility. Vandalism violates all three concepts. Even if that behavior takes place off the campus, its reflection on the university community would be grounds for it to be heard by the Student Judicial Board as an Honor Code case.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Dec 3 2004. Filed under News.
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