 "Photo: Jill Bonnough")
For residents of the north campus area between Hudson and Dodridge streets, 2 a.m. is when their nightly battle begins, like it has since 2002.
They are not fighting for their lives, but instead for a good night's sleep and clean, vandalism-free yards and streets.
Their enemies are the patrons of the four bars lining High Street in their small area: Ledo's Lounge, Miani's Bar & Grill, Oldfield's on High and the Ravari Room, which is connected to Hounddog's Three Degree Pizza.
The weapons used by the bar customers are not guns, knives or even fists, residents said, but the beer bottles, vomit and urine that cover the streets as evidence of the early morning battle.
"About nine to 10 o'clock you have cars zooming up and parking and they're loud then because they've been pre-drinking, but then when it gets to 2:30 a.m., it's amazing how many urinate and throw beer cans," said Seth Golding, the University Area Commission representative for district two. "It's like a war."
Golding, who lives on East Dodridge Street, is not the only resident who has experienced problems.
Virginia Grant, a resident of Duncan Street who has four sons ages 3 to 15, has seen a lot of damage done to cars on her block: antennae broken, windows smashed, tires slashed and cars hit.
"It's bad enough that they just leave the beer bottles, but when they break - that's just really frustrating for a parent with young children," she said. "The whole neighborhood feels a little bit more vulnerable."
Grant also said she has problems with the noise late at night.
"You can't open your windows even during the hottest summer," Grant said. "People don't realize that there are kids trying to sleep."
One co-owner of Miani's was reached but refused to comment. Other bar owners could not be reached for comment.
Pasquale Grado, executive director for the University Community Business Association, said the problems on north campus are not localized to that area.
"You have to bear in mind that it's the same situation all over the city," he said. "Whenever you have a high concentration of late-night establishments, you're prone to those kinds of problems."
Many area residents have an opinion about those causing the problems, but most agree that the problems began in early 2002 when the last of the south campus bars were closed so that construction for the South Campus Gateway could begin.
Golding said he blames Ohio State and Campus Partners for the problems because they are behind the Gateway project.
"What used to be like 10 to 20 bars that used to be distributed mostly in the south is now just concentrated down to five bars (in the north)," he said. "I think Campus Partners or the university as a whole should address it since they caused it and put some money toward special duty cops."
Steve Sterrett, the spokesman for Campus Partners, said Golding is putting the blame in the wrong place. The area could not support as many bars when the legal drinking age changed from 18 to 21, he said.
"When the law changed, (south campus bars) simply didn't have the same market that they once had with college students," Sterrett said. "By the time Campus Partners acquired the properties, the area was in severe decline. I don't think it's a matter of the university or Campus Partners creating the changes. The changes were already in place."
Sterrett also said that he does not foresee OSU or Campus Partners paying for extra officers, as the university already contributes $100,000 per year to the budget of the community crime patrol.
Golding said he remembers when Columbus Police would set up heavy wires along the sidewalks and have officers at every block when the campus bars let out and would like to see something similar happen on north campus.
Larry Geis, community liaison officer for the Columbus Division of Police in the 4th precinct, said that such a police presence is a thing of the past.
"You won't see that down here," he said. "They don't want to make it a place where kids don't want to go."
Andrew Wallace, north campus senator for Undergraduate Student Government, said he believes that residents near the bar need to understand the culture of their neighborhood.
"When you buy a home, you have to take into account that there's a bar around your house and there may be trouble because people are drinking," Wallace said. "I don't want to put any blame on the residents, but I think they need to understand more and tolerate that. Also, students need to realize that you need to be respectful of your surroundings."
One of the factors that remain to be seen is whether the South Campus Gateway will be able to draw the crowd from the north back to the south.
Lisa Ellen Smith, an OSU alumna with a master's degree in city and regional planning and Golding's neighbor, said she does not believe that it will.
"They're not going to create the environment that they tore down," Smith said. "What they're building is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but you've taken away part of where students have traditionally gone and we don't want them in our neighborhood."
Sterrett said he feels the opposite will be true.
"If you're putting a business in the middle of a student neighborhood, you better appeal to students," he said. "If you don't appeal to students, you'll (go out of business.)"
One measure that has helped to alleviate some of the problems experienced by the residents of East Dodridge Street is the institution of city permit parking to prevent bar patrons from parking on their street.
"Honestly, I have to say that permit parking has improved our standard of life up here," Smith said. "It hasn't eliminated all the problems and it's never going to, but it really has helped."
Andrea Peebles, assistant city attorney for Columbus, said that every year residents have the opportunity to object to city council about the renewal of any bar's liquor license.
In February, residents were unsuccessful in preventing the renewal of Miani's license.
"It's not the goal of the city to close down businesses," Peebles said. "We're only going against people that are causing problems."
Golding said, nevertheless, that neighborhood residents are beginning to consider the most drastic option to deal with bars - voting to ban liquor establishments from the district.
"We don't want to do that in any way," he said. "But if the problems aren't addressed by the bar owners, or the university won't help with some sort of police presence, that may be a route that we may think about pursuing. There seems to be a huge amount of support for that with the residents on both the east and west of High Street."
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