Vic Uni mob accused of trashing two motels
The Dominion Post
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A drunken mob of 130 Victoria University students is accused of trashing rooms and leaving two Rotorua motels strewn with vomit, alcohol and food before being evicted.
The students were in Rotorua for last week's University Games. But horrified staff say they behaved more like animals than athletes, causing thousands of dollars' damage during late-night parties.
The students say the claims have been exaggerated and "there wasn't as much alcohol as made out". But they admit causing noise and minor problems with carpet stains and vomit.
Terrified owners called in a security firm after a tip-off that students planned to ransack the Cleveland Motel and Havana Motor Lodge on Thursday night after a party.
The Havana had evicted 44 unruly students and the Cleveland 88 that day because of their behaviour, noise complaints and the state of rooms.
Victoria University vice-chancellor Pat Walsh plans to meet student representatives this week and says inappropriate behaviour is unacceptable.
The motel owners plan to complain and seek money to cover damages.
"We've found televisions with alcohol poured through them," Cleveland Motel owner Cynthia Hawkins said.
"We've got broken toasters, broken kettles. We had to get the carpets shampooed because there's vomit right through. There's alcohol stains in just about every room in the whole place and it just stinks."
The students arrived drunk last Monday and it was "non-stop drinking" from then on.
"It was just shocking. We were under the impression that they weren't young kids and they would be a bit more mature - not just hooligans out of control."
An ambulance was called after staff found a man lying unconscious in a garden. He had vomited through a unit and on a bed. Furniture was broken and beer bottles left floating in a pool.
Havana owner Jan Stevenson said carpets were soiled with food and stained with red wine. A mattress was soaked with urine and vomit found in rooms.
"We hadn't slept for three nights. We were up all night because these guys just didn't stop.
"They'll never be welcome back here again."
After she kicked her guests out, a student representative turned up with a lawyer demanding a refund for the final night's accommodation.
"They wanted $1200 because I'd evicted them, but my bill is going to be six or seven thousand dollars."
There were no reports of trouble with students from other universities, she said.
Assistant team manager Mark Davis said students were paying for a broken window and some minor carpet stains but denied they had trashed the motels.
Students were upfront with motel staff and deliberately hired out both complexes so they would not cause problems for other guests.
"If there are other issues, we're more than happy to talk to them about it. But I'd be a bit concerned if they started charging for things like cleaning duvets."
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take the drinking cuture out of Uni's yeah right.
noone really even asked what the students had to say. unfortunitly this may have been a bad case, but i am 100% sure there was so much Exaggeration here.
good on you vic for taking out the sheild though! work hard party hard!!
Neville, you comment with such conviction that clearly you have access to some further information about these events beyond one sensationalised news report, do share.
Haha, I wish auckland uni students were more like this!
I was one of the students that was evicted and guess how much alcohol I touched the entire week... not a drop. How much damage did I do to the place??? Nothing. I went to bed everynight at 10:30pm and saw many other atheletes do the same thing. Don't be so quick to judge the students. This might sound a bit scary, but the hotel manager lied. They overexaggerated.
Classic example of why the drinking age should be raised! These 18-19 yo don't seem to show the maturity required to be allowed out on their own, especially when alcohol is involved. Even the "third motel" mentioned above should be annoyed - how awful to have your livelihood treated like someone's personal dumping ground.
you have to remember this is only a single group of students from a single university. There were many other university's there that did not get in to trouble like this, so judge all students just cause there is a bad bunch from one university.
Where is the collective responsibility? By saying that it wasnt as bad as described the students are denying personal responsibility however they should have tried to persuade their fellows to moderation, instead they duck for cover and cry "Not Me". Guilty as charged and they deserve the criticism.
An interesting side note, either missed or ignored by your reporter: Your article does make any mention that the police and the Uni Games security team were called to the Cleveland. This was not by the owners of the motel, but by Uni Games organisers. This was in response to the "security firm" acting in a menacing, intimidating, and threatening manner to the students who were staying there. The police presence also served to explain to the motel owners that it is in fact illegal to steal customers' bags in order to "make them pay". Would the owners not have called the police themselves if they truly thought there was going to be widespread, intentional damage caused to their motel? Please make no mistake, any damage made to a motel room, real or otherwise, is unacceptable (and should be compensated for), but so is shoddy, one sided reporting that will only serve to aggravate opinions against the oft burnt effigy of students, as evidenced by some comments appearing here already. If you label, stigmatise, and curse a person as a "hooligan", an "animal", or part of a "drunken mob" for long enough, you might just reap what you sow.
awesome. It's that kind of effort that also saw Vic Uni bring home the Uni Games shield. Maybe other University teams should have followed Vic's example
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This comes to show how much people exagerate. I was staying at the Havana Hotel. Yes, I admit ONE of the rooms was really bad but after that room got evicted, the rest of VIC agreed to go in and clean it ourselves. The window that was smashed, we paid for ourselves and that window was smashed when no one was even drinking. The owner seems to think we were hanging from the bars on the second floor, when the drinking was taken place mostly outside. I am not denying the fact that Havana is a great place to stay at because it is. But the judgements against Victoria University are inadequate and by far exagerated.