Save our Neighbourhood Action Group (SONAG) launched a website last week, posting pictures of parties that recently took place in the student neighbourhood.
Kingston resident and former city councillor Don Rogers, who heads the group, said he hopes the pictures will spark action against student misbehaviour during the school year.
Along with the pictures, the site posts the addresses of the homes where the parties took place. These actions are legal because the photos were taken while the photographer stood on public property and the captions don’t name individuals.
Although SONAG’s actions aren’t illegal, they’re unethical and disturbing, perhaps more so because the group appears to have acted barely within the confines of the law.
Parties can get out of hand; students should be more responsible hosts, notifying their neighbours ahead of their party and cleaning up their mess the morning after.
But by grossly invading students’ privacy, SONAG’s doing nothing but antagonizing them. SONAG’s actions destroy students’ ability to trust fellow residents not to spy on their affairs.
Perhaps students feel justified in mistreating their houses because they see their landlords often doing the same. Many student houses fall short of basic safety standards and rent prices aren’t proportionate to the services they receive.
SONAG complains that students wouldn’t behave in this manner in their home neighbourhoods. It would follow logically that, by making Kingston feel more like home to students, a lot of misbehaviour could be avoided.
The site merely perpetuates the ‘us versus them’ mentality that damages co-operation between students and the city.
It’s unclear what SONAG is hoping to accomplish with the site. Although it makes a good point about students’ need to look after their neighbourhoods, some of the photos—such as one that complains of a barbecue on a student house’s front lawn—destroy the complainants’ credibility by coming off as simply eager to pick a fight.
In order to be taken seriously, SONAG will have to start holding two-way conversations with students.
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