Students at the College are hoping Green Key will be a weekend filled with wild fraternity parties, but Safety and Security and the Hanover Police are anticipating a relatively quiet weekend.
Unlike its fall and winter counterparts, Green Key "really does not have a lot of activity for us," Hanover Police Department Captain Chris O'Connor said.
O'Connor said the department is planning to increase the number of officers on patrol during Green Key, as complaints involving drunken students and their guests can "tie up officers for a lot of time."
He said most complaints are made in the late evening or in the early morning and many involve visitors to Hanover rather than students.
But O'Connor said fewer out-of-towners come to Hanover for Green Key weekend than during other major weekends.
"Compared to Winter Carnival weekend, [Green Key] is more keyed to Dartmouth," he said.
O'Connor said there is also not a substantial increase in crime during the weekend.
"Every so often you may see a spike in the amount of thefts," he said. "[These] normally involve wallets, jackets."
He said the officers are not expecting the weekend to attract enough out-of-town visitors to warrant managing traffic.
Safety and Security also has plans to increase the number of officers on foot-patrol, Sergeant Supervisor for Safety and Security Mark Lancaster said.
He said the officers would patrol student residences and College property and would act as "extra eyes and ears."
Lancaster said extra officers are also usually dispatched to supervise special events, but no requests for officers have been made this spring.
He said the work of Safety and Security will be facilitated by the Office of Residential Life's decision to lock residence halls during Green Key weekend.
"That makes a big difference for us," he said.
Director of Residential Operations Woody Eckels said the locked door policy is not unique to Green Key -- ORL locks dormitory doors during Green Key, Homecoming, Harvard Weekend and Winter Carnival.
Eckels said the policy is designed to reduce the amount of dorm damage during the weekend and damage charges to dorm residents.
"This decision has been made pretty consistently for years and years and years," he said.
O'Connor said the police department's activities this year will not differ substantially from those of past years, since Green Key has been relatively quiet during the last decade.
Lancaster said the weekend "brought in a lot more [visitors]" 10 or 15 years ago when he began working for Safety and Security.
O'Connor said that this year has been quiet in general, and "even Winter Carnival" did not attract as many visitors as it has in the past.
