A senior professor who lives near Queen’s University is leading a charge to curtail excessive drinking by students.

Geoff Smith, a professor emeritus of physical and health education and history and the self-described “Sheriff of William Street” has founded the group Kingston Against Drunken Students (KADS) to pressure city and university officials to take action to address the effects of binge drinking.

Smith said municipal and university efforts to keep the traditional Aberdeen Street parties under control — including a heavy police presence and a university-sanctioned concert on Union Street — have only pushed the house parties into neighbouring areas.

“I’m on William Street between Barrie and Clergy streets. I am in the combat zone,” he said. “The students who are doing this are getting more numerous and they are moving out further into the community and they are creating real big problems with noise, garbage and behaviour.

“Let students who are misbehaving, who are barfing in our compost, who are peeing on my back wall, who are having sex in the laneway, let’s let them know that this is not necessarily the way that things should go in Kingston.”

To illustrate his concern, Smith walked into an alley behind a house across the street from his place, where he tried to open a gate to the back stairs of a building on Barrie Street. The gate would not open because of garbage bags tossed down the stairs.

Shifting demographics in Sydenham District are also contributing to the problem, he said, as older residents leave or die and their houses are purchased for use as student housing.

Smith was careful to note that the problems are not the fault of all students.

“A great majority of students are fine, but the ones who aren’t, aren’t fine,” he said.

“Most of them are beautifully behaved and they do what they should do as responsible citizens of this fine, fine town, and that is take their garbage out, maintain quiet after 11 o’clock and don’t begin to drink hard liquor at 8 o’clock in the morning,” he said. “Why in the world is anybody going to start drinking at 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning or even earlier? Even for Homecoming.”

Smith said he has talked to senior university officials and is encouraged by their initial reactions. He said he likens KADS’ role as similar to that of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and its formation comes two weeks after Homecoming, but Smith said the issue of binge drinking goes beyond the weekend parties.

Binge drinking, he said, can establish habits that lead to mental and physical health issues later in life, such as alcoholism and premature death.

“It’s a behavioural habit that we have winked at for far too long,” he said. “The time has come to do something to make it as popular as smoking and drunk driving.”

Smith said he would like to see the city pass bylaws, or better enforce existing bylaws, to deter students from engaging in actions that damage the neighbourhood and create long-lasting social problems.

“We can bring something that has been winked at, has been in the shadows, bring it out, examine it really hard and get some bylaws that have some bite,” he said.

elferguson@postmedia.com