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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF MANHATTAN COLLEGE | SINCE 1924
Volume CV, Issue 5
Altercation at Fenwick’s Leads to “Manhattan Students Only” Rule on Weekends Jilleen Barrett
Managing Editor & Features Editor
Love is in the Air at MC
Students celebrated Valentines’s Day on campus by selling baked goods, roses and other treats. LAUREN RAZIANO/ THE QUADRANGLE
MC Senate Addresses Commencement and Renovations on South Campus The Manhattan College Senate meeting confirmed that the 2022 Commencement ceremony will be held in New Jersey, with vaccination exemptions, and that further spending on Leo Hall and the Higgins Engineering and Science Center will raise renovation costs above its current $92 million figure. After announcing the Meadowlands Exposition Center as the 2022 Commencement venue in January, provost Steven Schreiner has faced a multitude of concerns and complaints, as reported earlier by The Quadrangle. At the meeting last Tuesday, Schreiner confirmed that holding commencement at the
Meadowlands was in part to allow unvaccinated students and guests to attend the event. “We have unvaccinated people in our community,” Schreiner said at the meeting. “Right now we have exemptions, and that’s part of our community and who we are.” However, Schreiner emphasized that safety protocols will be taken to ensure that whoever is attending the ceremony will be in line with the college’s standards, depending on the situation in May. Schreiner told The Quadrangle that the rules for guests attending the ceremony will likely mirror those currently in place for events on campus in spaces like Draddy Gymnasium and Kelly Commons. According to GoJaspers, all guests attending events in Draddy Gymnasium must
IN NEWS:
IN FEATURES:
Kyla Guilfoil Editor-in-Chief
Jaspers Respond to COVID Updates pg. 5
FREE
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 22, 2022
An MC Love Story on pg. 7
be masked at all times, show proof of vaccination and show a Manhattan College Green Pass upon entering. Since it has been established that unvaccinated individuals will be allowed at commencement, Schreiner indicated that it will likely be necessary for such guests to submit negative COVID tests before attending, but nothing is for certain. Schreiner added that because the Meadowlands has no pre-established COVID rules, the college has full jurisdiction over the protocols, which will be determined as the date approaches. Ultimately, Schreiner confirmed to The Quadrangle that the contract with Meadowlands was signed in early Jan__________________________ CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
After an altercation in Fenwick’s involving a gun, owner Rich Puentes is enforcing a new rule: only Manhattan College students will be admitted to the bar Thursday through Friday from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. The incident, which took place at around 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, involved two separate groups of local women. One group had put money in the bar’s jukebox to play music when the other group paid more money and skipped the first group’s songs. “If you come here a lot, then you know that if you pay more money, you can skip someone’s song,” Puentes said. “There were some locals here who unfortunately don’t come here often … [they] put their money in the jukebox. And then another group of locals put their money in after but paid more money to skip the songs of the [first group]. Obviously, if you don’t know that’s happening, that kind of seems like ‘Well, this person just skipped all my songs, I paid money.’ So that was like the reason for the altercation.” Puentes explained how the first group of women approached the second group, not aware of the reason their songs were skipped, and that escalated into a physical argument. “Then punches were thrown [between the women], there was mace in the air and a couple of beer buckets were thrown around and stuff like that,” Puentes said. “And eventually my security team came in and dragged them out.” This is when Puentes and other staff members of Fenwick’s started asking people to leave. However, the altercation didn’t end there. Puentes explained that both of the groups of women had
IN A&E:
The Jasper Journal on pg. 9
some male friends with them who began to fight outside the bar and inside of Jasper’s Deli, just two doors away. A group of students from Manhattan College went to Jasper’s Deli after they evacuated the bar. It is not unusual for Manhattan students to visit the deli commonly known as “J-Del” after spending time at Fenwick’s, but what happened during their visit was not quite as typical. One of the students, a female, explained to The Quadrangle how the men continued their fight inside the deli which led to her hitting her head on the front counter. Shortly after, one of the men — who was outside the deli at this point — pulled out a firearm. “The people who were fighting ended up coming into Jasper’s Deli,” she said. “And in there I just remember being pushed up against the counter — I hit my head on the counter … After that, one of the workers in Jasper’s Deli told me and my friends to go back into the big refrigerator in the back where they keep the extra drinks. So we waited there and then once it sounded like they had left [and] the fight had stopped, we walked back out of the refrigerator and then one of the workers [said] ‘No, you have to get back in there. He has a gun’.” Puentes saw the firearm from inside Fenwick’s and called the police. “I saw that one of the guys who were outside had a firearm, so I did what anybody would do in that case and called the cops,” Puentes said. “And so that’s just where it got to that point where … they’re fighting outside and then someone had a firearm … I’m not letting my security guards out there to disarm them.” As Puentes dialed 911, bartender and junior at Manhattan College, Taryn O’Connell, was __________________________ CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
IN SPORTS:
Swimmers return from the MAAC on pg. 12