Cambridge Center Parties Scrutinized

Harvard students looking to rent party space from the Cambridge Center for Adult Education will face intensified scrutiny from the city’s License Commission following the recent surge in large party requests from student groups at the College.

An upswing in requests for party space from Harvard students drew suspicion from the Commission about whether the Center was properly vetting party proposals for safety and propriety, said Elizabeth Lint, the executive director of the Cambridge License Commission.

The Commission, which must approve a license for any group looking to hold a Cambridge event that charges admission and serves alcohol, will be reevaluating the Center’s viability as a party space for an unspecified amount of time. Licensing officials are intent ensuring that future party proposals are in line with fire-safety, alcohol, and curfew regulations.

“What triggered the reevaluation in my mind was one group that requested a license for a party with over 200 people until three in the morning,” said Lint, adding that the Center’s rental space has only a 153-person capacity.

“It’s not really the type of facility that would be hosting parties,” Lint said.

Lint also said that the License Commission had recently appeared to be receiving unregulated party applications.

“We’re used to requests for Harvard parties coming in to us through the Dean’s office, but now we’re starting to get applications and she doesn’t know anything about them,” Lint said.

Groups such as the Chinese Students Association and the Association of Black Harvard Women have recently held parties at the Brattle Street space.

Sean Li ’09, co-president of the Chinese Students Association, said that his group had plenty of options for spaces to host events if the Adult Education Center were to stop renting out their rooms.

“To be honest, the CSA has never used the Center’s space for parties before this year, and we could always just use spaces we previously used,” Li said. “I wouldn’t say it would have a devastating impact on our capacity to hold events or anything.”

Lint had no definitive answer when asked whether the non-profit organization would be allowed to continue renting out their space as they work with the Commission to tighten restrictions on events hosted there.

“They haven’t shown us that they are fire-code compliant, so I’m not willing to say one way or the other,” Lint said.

Cambridge Center for Adult Education’s executive director Jim Smith said that the Center has not violated any city ordinances. He also stressed the responsibility of individual event organizers to adhere to city policies on alcohol and curfew.

“If a Harvard group comes to us for a space, they need to go to the License Commission,” Smith said. “We don’t run these functions, so it’s also the responsibility of the renting group to obtain the license to restrict and regulate their parties.”

According to Smith, the Center also rents out its space for meetings and other non-alcoholic gatherings.

“There haven’t been any problems in the past with over-capacity, and we haven’t really had big problems with crowd control,” Smith said. “But the city is just being careful.”

—Staff writer Shan Wang can be reached at wang38@fas.harvard.edu.