Volunteers may steer clear of Aberdeen

‘Peacekeeping group’ fears for safety if city doesn’t close street

Volunteer group leader Vinni Rebelo says the group is not here to ‘condone or condemn’ the Aberdeen street party.
Image by: Joshua Chan
Volunteer group leader Vinni Rebelo says the group is not here to ‘condone or condemn’ the Aberdeen street party.

If city council doesn’t agree to close Aberdeen Street over Homecoming Weekend, last year’s Aberdeen Street volunteers may not be making a repeat appearance.

“If city council doesn’t close the street, it’s going to make things difficult for us,” said Vinni Rebelo, who’s organizing a team of volunteers to patrol Aberdeen Street. Last year Rebelo, a Queen’s alumnus and Kingston resident, organized close to 400 volunteers to diffuse Homecoming tensions on Aberdeen Street.

“We felt safe last year, but if the street isn’t closed, there will be confrontations with the police, and it’ll be difficult for people to get out there, and it will not be a safe environment. It may affect the number of volunteers we have this year.” Rebelo said if the streets are not closed, they may have to withdraw from their commitment.

“There is an 80 per cent chance that we will not be out on the street there if it is not closed off.” Like last year, the volunteers planned to disperse on the street, handing out water and exchanging plastic cups for glass bottles, trying to keep the street’s atmosphere calm.

“We’re not there to tell people what to do and what not to do, just to be safe,” Rebelo said. “[The party is] inevitably going to happen. And we figured if we were out there, they would see what we were doing, and we would influence people and their actions.”

After the Homecoming 2005 Aberdeen Street party made national news, Rebelo was fed up with the reputation Queen’s had acquired and wanted to clean up the notorious annual street party on Aberdeen.

“I was getting frustrated with what was being done about it, people pointing fingers with no valuable solutions. So I asked myself: what can I contribute?” What he contributed was a force of 300 to 400 people from the community and the University to help clean up the streets on Homecoming.

“We came up with this idea of putting people on the streets like a peace-keeping group. We’re not there to condone and condemn; we’re just making sure that everyone is safe,” Rebelo said.

Rebelo said he’s worried Homecoming will get out of hand given the kind of parties students have been having this month.

“It’s been kind of disturbing, obviously, when the police chief’s saying [Frosh Week] was the worst he’s seen. That doesn’t seem to be a good situation.” Even with these prospective drawbacks, Rebelo remains optimistic.

“We’re in close consultation with the AMS, the Kingston police and Queen’s students. A lot of people are talking and co-ordinating with what we’re going to do,” Rebelo said. “Let’s make this better than last year.”

———–
Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Rebelo at 613-389-1401.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content