CSUN May Restrict Gatherings : Violence: Administrators won’t rule out a ban on large social functions after police close down a rowdy fraternity dance and gunshots are fired on campus.

In the wake of a rowdy weekend dance and post-party shooting incident, Cal State Northridge administrators Tuesday began raising the possibility of severely restricting admission to large-scale social events or even banning such functions altogether.

CSUN officials said they have been forced to take a second look at crowd-control procedures instituted at Friday night’s fraternity dance after campus and Los Angeles police closed it down because of unruly crowds outside the entrance. It was the first large event at the University Student Union since a dance in February attracted 1,000 people and ended in an outbreak of fighting.

“We need to look at whether we should try to limit the number of people, and are they just our students--those are the questions,” said Fred Strache, CSUN’s associate vice president for student programs. “And the broader question is whether we should even have these events.”

The Phi Beta Sigma fraternity dance, shut down less than two hours after it began, was followed early Saturday by two series of gunshots in a dormitory parking lot across campus where about 200 of the 600 party-goers had gathered. No one was injured in the incidents.

A Pasadena man who presumably drove to Northridge for the dance was arrested in connection with the first gunshots, campus police said. There are no suspects in the second incident, which took place in the same locale shortly afterward.

Strache said the new security procedures, which limit admission to college students and their guests and mandate the use of metal-detecting wands, were adequate for the dance but did not cover what transpired later.

“We have bigger problems than procedural ones. The problems are housing and the parking lots,” he said. “Even if the dance had not been canceled, you still have the problem of spillover after the event where people congregate.”

Strache, who is meeting with housing and campus security officials throughout the week, refused to rule out the possibility that dances might be proscribed completely, but he added that it was “too early” to speculate on what actions the university would take.

Following the incident in February, CSUN officials limited attendance to college students with valid identification only, with one guest each. Further limits being considered would restrict admission to CSUN students or to members of the fraternities themselves, including members of chapters at other colleges.

Members of Phi Beta Sigma said that the violence occurred after the dance and that further admission restrictions--and an outright ban--would unfairly penalize organizations such as theirs that rely on the functions as their primary fund-raisers.

“I don’t know what we can do. We can’t control what people do after the dance,” said Phi Beta Sigma President Robert Charles Hubbard, a CSUN junior.

Instead, he and his fraternity brothers said that entering the dance under the new security guidelines was a laborious process that kept too many people waiting outside and inflamed tempers. Those allowed in had to show identification, buy their tickets, receive a wristband and submit to metal detection--all in the same small area.

“The procedures we were using were too slow. It was one person every minute or so,” said Sean Gaston, a Phi Beta Sigma officer. “That’s not going to work when you have 400 people standing outside.”

He said Phi Beta Sigma would recommend spacing out the entrance stations and having more students man the doors.

David Weiss, 21, president of CSUN’s Associated Students, said the student senate would be organizing an ad-hoc committee of administrators, students and faculty members to address the questions raised by Friday’s disturbance. He said the solution lies in improved crowd control rather than eliminating dances and concerts.

“The administration needs to realize that we’re not in a vacuum any more,” he said. “The problems that are happening in society--the crime--are going to happen on this campus. . . . CSUN is a growing university, in its diversity and in its population, and we’re having to deal with city problems.”

To control the size of crowds congregating after major events, CSUN is planning to erect gates to limit access to dormitory parking lots, said Cindy Derrico, assistant director for residential life.

“That wouldn’t be a foolproof method, but it’ll be a start,” she said.