At the beginning of the year, the Gate and Josiah's began to stay open until 2 a.m., an hour later than in previous years. Though students say they like the additional hour, student workers with Brown Dining Services have reported problems with the new schedule.
The Herald sent a reporter to spend the Thursday late shift with BuDS workers at the Gate.
11:07 p.m.
"What time is it? My watch just broke yesterday. It's going to drive me crazy all night." Brian Corcoran '06, a supervisor at the Gate, is waiting for his late-shift workers to arrive. Because he's working as a substitute, this is the fourth day in a row that Corcoran has worked a shift at the Gate.
Late arrivals are a constant problem for late-shift supervisors like him, Corcoran said. The shift, which runs from 11:15 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., forces students to rush and finish homework before coming in to work, he said.
11:30 p.m.
By this time, four out of the six people signed up for the late shift are clad in aprons and at work serving sandwiches and pizza. Student workers at the Gate Thursday aren't quiet about the problems caused by later hours of operation at the Gate and Josiah's. Closing at 2 a.m., versus the previous closing time of 1 a.m., means workers and supervisors leave at 2:30 or 2:45 a.m. after cleaning up. At that hour, SafeRIDE is making its last rounds, and Clair McClung '05, unit manager of the Gate, said workers sometimes miss the last shuttle.
Angela Alexander '07, a cashier supervisor, said by the time students get out from the late shift, Thayer Street is empty. Alexander usually works at Jo's but is subbing tonight at the Gate. One night, though, she walked one of her cashiers home from Jo's to the Pembroke campus because she was worried about her walking alone.
Similarly, Corcoran said he often gives his workers a ride home after the late shift. But these are not permanent solutions, and McClung said she has been working with the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Transportation Office to solve this problem. She said a plan is being worked out to make taxis available free of charge to BuDS workers, but the plan has not been finalized yet.
The second problem with the later hours is that more customers are coming in intoxicated. McClung said weekends are now very busy late at night. It is especially in the extended hour that workers see the largest number of drunk students, she said.
11:45 p.m.
More students fill the Gate, and a long line of customers forms in front of the cashiers.
Theft at Jo's has doubled this year, Alexander said, and between one and three professional BuDS employees stand guard there each night. She said she can understand keeping the eateries open late on the weekends, but not during weekdays. And she said the University needs to provide security for student workers and incentives to work the late shift.
Rielle Navitski '06, who has been serving pizza most of the night, said the new hours offer "trivial convenience for students versus a real negative impact for workers." She said she does not think business increases, but only becomes more spread out throughout the night.
12:30 a.m.
Corcoran finds five beer cans in the dining area but is unable to find anyone holding a can. No alcohol is allowed in the Gate, and Corcoran said BuDS supervisors will take away students' Brown ID cards if they come in with any.
The crowd is quiet tonight, but that's not necessarily always the case, Gate workers say.
Alexander said when people are drunk, they're more likely to argue with the cashiers or even threaten them.
On a Friday night about three weeks ago, a student who tried to buy food with a card that didn't belong to him assaulted a cashier after she told him he couldn't use the card and confiscated it. McClung was called a few minutes after the incident. Though she said it wasn't clear if the student was drunk at the time of the assault, Gate workers said Thursday that this incident represents the drawbacks of the new longer hours.
While McClung didn't know the ultimate outcome of the incident, Alexander said a report was filed with the Department of Public Safety. McClung said that overall it is "harder for workers to serve" customers who are intoxicated.
Former UCS Campus Life Committee Chair Ari Savitzky '06, said the growing problem of drunk and disorderly Gate customers brings up the underlying issue of Brown's alcohol policy and how strictly it is enforced. "It's a tragedy of the commons," he said, adding that the way to deal with this is to tighten enforcement of alcohol policy in all areas of campus, including dorms.
12:45 a.m.
Joshua Levi, a Johnson and Wales sophomore in culinary arts, puts on a James Bond soundtrack. Levi has been on the job since 8 p.m. tonight but still manages to find the energy to wage a music war with his fellow workers. By 1 a.m., No Doubt is rocking the Gate.
Tonight, two of the workers are Johnson and Wales students. Traditionally, JWU students staff only Josiah's, but since the hours were extended for the Gate and Josiah's this year, it has been difficult for BuDS to staff the Gate with only Brown student workers.
McClung said the late shifts were understaffed until the beginning of October, when BuDS began to use JWU students to fill in the gaps. She said the Gate is normally a popular place to work, but the last shift's later hours have made staffing very difficult, even though it lasts three hours instead of the typical four.
Savitzky was a key figure in bringing about the longer hours during his tenure as chair of UCS's campus life committee. Later hours at Jo's and the Gate were part of a campaign to create more spaces, later hours and increased services for students, he said.
He and others on the committee last year thought that there would be some students who would want to work later shifts, Savitzky said. But staffing shortages this year on the Gate's late shift have suggested otherwise.
Matthew Randle '06, who had permission to arrive late for the shift, is doing the dishes tonight, bringing the total number of workers at this point to five, not including cashiers and supervisors. But for the first four weeks of the year, McClung washed dishes every night he worked because the Gate was so understaffed.
McClung said JWU students working at the Gate is just a temporary measure and she hopes to return to full staffing by Brown students next semester or next year.
"It's worrying to us that we may have to do this every semester," Corcoran said. He and others working here tonight talk about the atmosphere at the Gate being very open and friendly. Corcoran said, "There is a very high chance of seeing someone you know working at the Gate, but that will never happen at Jo's, because everyone who works there besides the cashiers is a JWU student."
Ben Creo '07, UCS class representative and appointments chair of the campus life committee, said, "Student workers give the Gate a distinctive personality." He said the campus life committee is trying to balance this with the extra hours.
Creo suggested that one solution to the staffing problem would be to close the food services at 1 a.m. but keep the space and the packaged food sales open until 2 a.m. He said this would allow the workers to clean up and leave earlier and would also make students more likely to leave before 2 a.m.
1:15 a.m.
Levi, who lives on Federal Hill, starts asking around for a ride. He said he has gotten a ride back home every night he has worked except the first night. Walking back takes him around an hour and a half, he said.
Levi has worked for BuDS for a month now and at the Gate for only two weeks. He works here and not at Johnson and Wales because BuDS pays $2 more per hour than JWU's dining services.
Though he said that it is more fun to work here, he said he's upset by how rude Brown students can be. He said he and other JWU students at Jo's often publicly admonish students who don't say "please" and "thank you" or who grab food from serving trays, to set an example for other customers.
1:30 a.m.
In the past half-hour, 84 people have bought food at the Gate. Tyler Hicks '08 is one of them; he said he always has his last meal of the day between 1 and 2 a.m. and likes the Gate because it is close to his dorm, Woolley Hall, and because it has a very relaxed atmosphere.
Zach Augenfeld '07 said the Gate is convenient for him because he goes to bed at 3 a.m. While he thinks that the weekends at the Gate are not very different from how they were last year, he said people are "sometimes fools."
One night, he said, he saw an intoxicated girl knock over the pizza bar. "It's definitely unacceptable. People at this school should be mature enough to know what not to do," he said.
Creo said the administration has told UCS that there is a larger problem of student disrespect for facilities and workers on campus. One example is an increasing number of students lighting toilet paper on fire in first-year dorms, he said.
1:55 a.m.
Two DPS officers arrive to speak to Corcoran. They're there to check in and make sure that the workers haven't had any problems. They tell Corcoran that Jo's had had theft problems tonight, but Corcoran assures them that everything is normal at the Gate. Corcoran said that the police have started dropping by here since the assault three weeks ago, and it has helped somewhat in controlling customers' behavior.
2:01 a.m.
"What time is it?" Corcoran asks. He walks to the Meeting Street entrance of Alumnae Hall to lock the front doors of the building, then locks the back entrance. By 2:05 a.m., the dining area is empty of customers and the workers are sanitizing the kitchen area.
Luckily, Levi has found a ride home tonight, and everyone is out of the building by 2:30 a.m. Just before leaving, however, Corcoran finds an opened package of blueberry muffins in one of the display trays, but oddly, the package seems almost full. He shakes his head and throws it away.
