In the past year, more than 680 warnings for party litter had been issued to properties throughout East Lansing, with 10 tickets issued. These data initially spurred conversation among city officials and residents in an attempt to garner more compliance, said Marie McKenna, East Lansing’s assistant city manager.

McKenna said the purpose of the ordinance was not to punish all students who have parties in the community, but rather to punish those who repeatedly have violated the party litter ordinance.

“We’re not trying to target a segment of our population in East Lansing — we’re really trying to address a behavior,” McKenna said. “(The amended ordinance) would give us a way to address that behavior.”

During the hearing, some student representatives came forward and expressed disagreement with certain aspects of the ordinance.

Paddy La Torre, community liaison for ASMSU, said she has received communication from many students who are opposed to changing the ordinance to remove the warning system from the wording of the ordinance. She said ASMSU’s stance on the ordinance was to keep the warning system in place to protect students who are not frequently abusing the ordinance.

“We do understand that this is a problem, and we are willing to help … but we are asking you to keep a warning system,” La Torre said.

Assistant City Attorney Tom Yeadon said the warning still is implied in the ordinance, and the wording primarily was changed to give the officers more discretion and ability to issue a ticket should the situation be particularly egregious.

“Unless we know that the litter is generated from that property, we’ll be giving a warning as we have done,” Yeadon said.

The community likely would be cleaner and hold repeat offenders more responsible for their party litter actions under the amendments to the ordinance, East Lansing resident Anne Grevstead said.

“This is not an attempt to target the student population … but we all do live together, and we all need to be responsible,” Grevstead said.

East Lansing Mayor Vic Loomis said the ordinance was not meant to punish students fiscally, but to change a recurring behavior and help instill East Lansing pride into all those residing within the city.

“To me, a lot of this is about a sense of pride in the community,” Loomis said. “It’s not trying to extract economic funds from (students), but it’s trying to address an issue that we continue to hear from a significant number of constituents in our city.”