Thursday, January 28, 1999
Overcrowding creates dining hall mess
DORMS: Despite recent efforts, seating shortage, thefts haunt
cafeterias
By Dennis Lim
Daily Bruin Contributor
When Andres Campo went to dinner last September, he did not
expect to eat his dinner on the floor, but he did.
Campo, along with five other dorm residents, spent a portion of
their night without a place to sit, because the dining halls were
so crowded there were simply no tables to sit at.
"We came in to Rieber to eat dinner and it was packed," said
Campo, a second-year business and economics student who lives in
Sproul Hall. "Everywhere you looked, there were people wandering
around looking for a place to sit, but all the seats were
taken."
Campo and his friends were later told by dining hall employees
they could not sit on the floor due to fire code laws. But they did
not offer an alternative for the group.
This year, problems with the lack of seating and lockers have
concerned the dining halls, as the number of freshmen living on
campus has exceeded those of past years.
Dining Services, the department in charge of the on-campus
dining halls, predicted overcrowded conditions, but say they’ve
taken steps to prevent them in the future.
"Last year we were very concerned at the number of students who
were going to live on-campus for the coming year," said Mary Niven,
associate director of dining services. "We were going to have more
students living here than we’ve usually had in the past."
Steps taken by Dining Services include extending the hours of
operation for many of the dining halls, opening of new dining halls
and increasing the number of lockers available to students.
"Since we have taken these actions we haven’t received that many
complaints," Niven said.
David Gharakhanian, a resident of Rieber Hall, said more needs
to be done to prevent theft at the dining halls.
After eating lunch at Rieber in December, a month after the
installation of new lockers, Gharakhanian came outside to find his
backpack stolen, along with all of his books, notes and personal
belongings.
"I went to lunch and all the lockers had been taken so I put my
backpack on top of the lockers," said Gharakhanian, a first-year
pre-business and economics student. "When I came outside, I
couldn’t find my backpack and neither could five other girls."
To address this problem, Dining Services has doubled the total
number of lockers available to students.
Gharakhanian, after filing a report with both the dining hall
and university police, discovered that other students at Covel and
Hedrick dining halls reported stolen backpacks around the same
time.
The backpacks turned up in a dumpster in Westwood three days
later – without Gharakhanian’s notes, library book and
textbooks.
Though the university police does not keep specific records on
the number of backpack thefts reported at the dining halls, Nancy
Greenstein, a spokeswoman for the university police, said backpack
thefts on campus have gone up since 1997. Backpack thefts totaled
973 in 1997, compared to 1,155 in 1998.
"Any time you leave your property unattended, there’s a risk of
theft," Greenstein said of the locker area outside the dorms. "This
is a very preventable crime."
Though Gharakhanian did not specifically blame anyone, he did
express dismay at the situation as a whole.
"I don’t blame the housing people, the workers at the dining
halls or anyone else," Gharakhanian said. "If there’s anyone to
blame in this whole ordeal, it’s the overcrowded conditions, not
any one person."NICOLE MILLER
Rieber and Sunset dining halls have experienced over-capacity
crowds this year at peak times – usually between 6:00 and 6:30
p.m.
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