Protest Pops Opening-Day Balloon : Students Want Big Businesses Out of UCSD Price Center

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for UC San Diego’s $19.4-million Price University Center was disrupted Friday by a raucous group of student protesters who popped balloons, yelled over bullhorns and held up signs reading, “We’re Students, Not Consumers” and “We’re Here to Learn, Not to Buy.”

University police arrested four of the more than 30 demonstrators on suspicion of obstructing and delaying an officer.

One student, who led university police on a chase as he continued to shout and play loud music over a bullhorn, is still being sought. Several students were arrested after they helped in his escape, according to university police Sgt. Bob Jones.

Another student was arrested on suspicion of malicious mischief after popping an archway of balloons that he later tore down, Jones said. All the students were released shortly after they were arrested.

“It was unfortunate--a big mess,” Jones said. “It was kind of entertaining, though.”

Hundreds of students, administrators and faculty members attended the opening.

But according to one organizer of the protest, many UCSD students think the new Price Center is not the social and cultural center that administrators promised, but is instead a “franchise that has a shopping mall atmosphere, like downtown La Jolla.” Student fees covered $9.5 million of the construction cost.

Student Peter Bogdanovich, 20, who helped organize Friday’s demonstration, conceded that the center is there to stay. However, some students are already organizing to boycott it, he said.

“If students are conscious--if they don’t spend their money (at the new center)--those businesses will leave,” Bogdanovich said. “Then the university will have to come to the students and ask, ‘What will you accept in your student center?’ ”

Want Student Businesses

Opponents of the new center, named after San Diego businessman Sol Price and his family, object to the corporate-run businesses in the center, including Wendy’s and Round Table Pizza.

“The old student center was for businesses run by students, to learn,” Bogdanovich said. “Now it seems like students are only good for slinging burgers.”

Friday’s opening ceremony was almost complete when university police began confiscating musical instruments and even pens--for popping balloons--from the protesters as they marched about 100 yards from the site of the ribbon cutting.

“I don’t think the police should drag people around and throw them in (patrol) cars because they were expressing their opinion,” said 19-year-old James Field, a sophomore studying psychology and writing.