St. Patrick’s Day weekend saw six additional police officers on duty and approximately 20 squad cars on patrol, said Constable Steve Koopman.

“We anticipated from last year’s St. Patrick’s Day that it would be busy enough that we did want other bodies,” Koopman said, adding that downtown bars were a focus for officers.

There were 64 noise complaints, 157 tickets issued and nine arrests for public intoxication throughout Kingston on Saturday.

“Most of the tickets were for minor infractions,” Koopman said. “I would imagine though that most of [the noise complaints] were around the downtown area of Kingston.”

At around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, a male pedestrian was hit by a police squad car at the corner of Johnson and Division Streets at 1:30 a.m. He was taken to hospital, suffering from a fractured kneecap. Koopman said he was unable to comment on the incident as it was being investigated by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).

He patrolled the downtown and campus area from 6 p.m. on Saturday until 6 a.m on Sunday morning. At 8 p.m. on Saturday he issued a ticket to a male Queen’s student drinking a bottle of beer at Barrie and Clergy Streets.

“He saw police coming and threw the bottle on the grass,” Koopman said, adding that it wasn’t the man’s property and that could have been an additional infraction. “He was charged with having alcohol in an open container … a $125 ticket.” This was the only ticket Koopman issued during his 12-hour shift.

“The lawn or house parties actually seemed to die down earlier in the evening … because they obviously started early in the day,” Koopman said. “That was sort of a pleasant surprise.”

Despite the amount of infractions, Koopman said this year’s St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t wilder than last year’s.

While bars downtown were busy for most of the day, other local businesses were also affected by St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

From Wednesday to Friday last week, Phase 2 sold out of many green items.

Phase 2 sells recycled brand-name clothing.

Sales Clerk Lorie Coventry said this year sales for St. Patrick’s Day items were on par with Halloween, one of their busiest days of the year.

“The managers had to keep ordering new shipments [of green T-shirts],” Coventry said. “Students were cutting them up, tye-dying them, just decorating them.”

Coventry has worked at Phase 2 for the past 15 years. She said that it was five years ago when she first noticed a growing student interest in St. Patrick’s Day.

“It’s gotten busier every year,” she said.

AMS Municipal Affairs Commissioner David Sinkinson worked with five other individuals to clean up Aberdeen Street on Sunday.

“Even if you just tripped on Aberdeen Street when we first got there you could’ve cut yourself,” Sinkinson said. “It was definitely a higher concentration than we’ve ever seen from such a short period of time.”

It started off as a trial to test new cleaning methods, but students living in the area ended up helping out the group. In addition to messy streets, computers and phones were unsuspecting casualties of the weekend.

“We had three computers come in specifically for alcohol liquid damage,” said Jordan Pridham, owner of electronic device repair shop iService.

iService, located on Alfred Street near campus, saw a significant spike in business over St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

“There were also numerous smashed iPhones,” Pridham said.

Pridham said a group of six girls entered his store, three of which were crying. He said one of the crying girls had spilled wine on her laptop.

“Every one of those computers we were able to fix,” Pridham said. “They felt super excited, one of the girls was yelling in the store because she was so happy.”