EWING — Police have been busy responding to nuisance calls for loud parties and rowdy behavior since college students returned to nearby campuses and off-campus rental properties about a month ago, township officials said Tuesday.

“The word is getting out that we are very serious about the situation and about what our citizens are experiencing when they have these loud parties,” Mayor Bert Steinmann said. “Enforcement has been stepped up.”

From the start of the semester through last week, 76 violations were issued, Chief Robert Coulton said, with 67 for underage drinking, six for littering and three for other nuisances. The calls were primarily to homes rented by students from The College of New Jersey and Rider University.

Police estimated there has been a tenfold increase in the number of summonses written for students recently. Steinmann said the jump resulted from an enforcement initiative the township intends to keep going for a long time.

At the same time, the schools are helping by letting students know they should not violate township regulations.

“The colleges, both Rider University and The College of New Jersey, have been very cooperative with my administration,” he said. “We meet regularly to go over issues, (and) they have addressed it in their orientation with incoming freshmen.”

He said he did not expect to eliminate nuisance issues with college students but said progress is being made.

“I know the word is out that Ewing is clamping down,” he said. “Kids are staying on campus now and doing some of their partying there.”

He said a previous policy of having police just give warnings to rowdy students did not work. In the new strategy, police give summonses to underage drinkers and those who serve them alcohol, and mail copies of the summonses to their parents, he said.

Coulton discussed the nuisance statistics at last night’s council meeting as part of his quarterly crime report.

Coulton said there was a spike in July in burglaries to structures, with 34 reported in the month.

Recently, township officers arrested three in the process of burglarizing a home — two juveniles and one young adult. Coulton said that one of the individuals confessed to more than 30 robberies in Ewing as well as others in Lawrence and Trenton.

Contact David Karas at (609) 989-5731, or dkaras@njtimes.com.

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