It’s 10 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day and a young woman is chugging vodka from the bottle in front of Zeta Psi, a fraternity at 180 St. George St. Two girls in green miniskirts and bobby socks ask for directions to the Madison, one of the biggest bars in the Annex, and scream their way down the street.

The lawn is littered with crushed red cups and something smells like pot. Inside the dark, cavernous mansion, roughly 60 people drink from four kegs sitting in a puddle of beer and dirt.

Around midnight, neighbour Colleen Berg could still hear students traipsing home from the bars, singing in choruses 20-strong. Then came a loud bang — some kind of explosion, she figured. She had a moment’s panic, but then heard cheering and remembered. It’s probably just the fraternities.

They are a fact of life around here.

Trinity-Spadina Councillor Adam Vaughan is doing what he can to rein in the rowdiest of the 24 fraternities and sororities in the Annex, but it has not been easy. “It has to stop,” Vaughan says. “You can’t steal park furniture or light bonfires or throw beer bottles at peoples’ cars or urinate on everyone’s front steps. And most importantly, noise: It has to come under control.”

In February, Toronto City Council approved extending a two-month moratorium on movie shoots at seven “problem” houses, in an attempt to keep the frats from making a quick buck so as to fund wild parties.

When the new harmonized zoning bylaw passed last year, the city created a land-use category for fraternity and sorority houses so they could be licensed and governed in a way to similar to rooming houses or group homes. Vaughan says the intent is to create “an accountability model with a standard set of expectations” for fire safety, noise and property standards.

The frats fought back, launching a Facebook campaign and meeting with condo boards, the Annex Residents’ Association and city council.

This month, council will start work on defining what constitutes fraternities and sororities, to create a new licensing regime under the municipal code, Vaughan says.

Adam Carson, who represents the Greek houses, says the properties are not rooming houses and should not be governed as such.

“We’re . . . working very hard to improve our reputation in the community, make ourselves as property owners more accessible to members of the community. And we acknowledge that from time to time there may have been issues with noise, and we’re addressing those,” Carson says.

So, have the parties quieted down? The Star spent a few nights in the Annex to find out.

On a Thursday and Friday night in February, noise from fraternity houses could be heard several doors down until after midnight — especially as partygoers came and went.

At Phi Kappa Sigma (163 St. George St.), guests played foosball in the front hall and brothers suggested losers streak through the house. The punishment was later revised to a keg stand (this involves gripping the keg with both hands while your legs are hoisted in the air and beer is pumped directly into your mouth).

There was a non-stop game of beer pong in the dining room. The front room was the club zone, where about a dozen people danced in the dark to loud electronic music and a nauseating strobe light. Guests cleared out around 2 a.m., when the kegs ran out.

On St. Patrick’s Day, there was an exclusive party at Beta Theta Pi at 131 Lowther Ave., which sits at a spacious intersection at Huron St. At the door, a beefy guy in a Guinness hat stopped a stranger from entering, shaking his head as he lit a cigarette. Several others were also rejected; some said their friends were at a nearby bar, but they weren’t legal drinking age.

Minutes later, rounds of “Chug, chug!” erupting from the second floor balcony could be heard well down the street.

Police visited this house 100 times between 1998 and 2008, according to a report obtained by the Star, for complaints ranging from noise disturbances to fights (including a stabbing) and a sexual assault in 2004.

Neighbour John, 43, who did not want to give his full name, said people were yelling and arguing on Huron St. at 3:30 a.m. after the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. But with so many partiers in the neighbourhood he says it’s hard to know where the noise is coming from.

Neighbours say they are often wakened by people going in or out of bars in the Annex. On St. Patrick’s Day, The Madison, a bar with a capacity of 2,000, had a lineup of about 200 people.

Resident David Sterns says people are resigned to calling the police to report problems because of the lack of accountability among the frats. “You can’t go to the university. . . and you can’t really go to the owners because the owner is a corporation,” he says.

One St. George St. resident sent a letter to Mayor Rob Ford in late January, attaching pictures of overflowing garbage he said had sat on the curb at 180 and 182 St. George St., headquarters for Zeta Psi and Delta Upsilon, for six days.

“Not only is this an eyesore and a health hazard, but it displays a complete lack of respect for the entire neighbourhood,” David Rasmus wrote.

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Other neighbours have not forgotten that in 2008, police made a $126,000 drug bust at Delta Kappa Epsilon (157 St. George St.).

But some residents interviewed by the Star said they don’t have a problem with the boisterous frats. Luiz, 48, has lived in the area for 10 years and says the parties have diminished over the past two or three years.

“I have to be honest,” says Berg, 30, who bought a condo on Prince Arthur Ave. across from Alpha Delta Phi and Zeta Psi three years ago. “I’m one of the people in the building that thinks: ‘The fraternities were here first.’”

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