Bottles hurled at Islamic Center from high-rise

Residents of a high-rise student housing facility have been throwing beer and liquor bottles off their balconies for more than a year, raining glass and other objects down on the nearby Islamic Center of Tucson’s roof and parking lot.

But the vandalism and abuse reached a fever pitch during the University of Arizona’s homecoming celebration this past weekend, said Kamel Didan, vice chairman of the board of the mosque and community center, which has been in Tucson since 1962.

“This weekend was absolutely terrible. Someone could have died,” said Didan, who is also an associate professor at the UA. “Imagine kids on the 14th floor, tossing whiskey bottles on people. When I came in Sunday morning, I was shocked at our parking lot. It looked like somebody smashed glass all over the place.”

He also heard that racial comments and obscenities were shouted from balconies at a woman entering the center. The racial comments were a first, he said, and he doesn’t consider the repeated vandalism a hate crime.

“This is mostly kids being very disrespectful, kids being drunk and not realizing how dangerous they are being,” he said.

The Islamic Center of Tucson has been at 901 E. First Street for 25 years. But Didan said leaders have recently considered moving because of verbal abuse, dangerous projectiles and loud partying from three nearby student housing facilities, especially Level, a 14-story facility that opened in fall 2013, he said. It’s located one block from the western edge of campus and many of its balconies overlook the Islamic Center.

Within months of the facility’s opening last year, residents had tossed eggs, produce — including pumpkins at Halloween — and glass bottles from the balconies, Didan said.

Complaints to management of Level — which is not affiliated with the University of Arizona — seemed to fall on deaf ears until last weekend, when Didan showed the building’s local manager the glass-strewn parking lot, Didan said.

This week the building’s management company, Denver-based Cardinal Group Management, flew an official to Tucson to meet with Didan on Tuesday. Cardinal Group took over management of Level and its next-door student housing property, Next, in June.

Alex O’Brien, a principal with Cardinal Group, said he came to Tucson to show how seriously the company is taking the complaints. “We will take disciplinary action against any residents identified in accordance with the lease,” he said in an email Tuesday.

Didan said they discussed adding nets to catch falling objects, covering the Islamic Center’s parking lot and adding surveillance cameras to catch offenders.

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University officials were unaware of the vandalism until contacted by the Star on Tuesday, said Andrea Smiley, associate vice president of communications for the UA. She said the university expects the facility’s management to deal with violations by its tenants, either through fines or eviction.

“We don’t know for sure they’re university students,” she said. “If they are, we would expect the property management to let us know and then we’d pursue our own investigation regarding the student code of conduct” through the UA Dean of Students Office.

Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik said Tuesday that he is organizing a meeting Monday in hopes of putting an end to the misbehavior. He’s invited the city attorney — to weigh in on whether the behavior could be considered reckless endangerment — as well as leaders of local neighborhood groups, the university, the Islamic Center and the Tucson Police Department.

Kozachik said he agrees with Didan that the bottle-throwing doesn’t appear to be motivated by racial or cultural discrimination.

“I don’t think this is a hate crime,” he said. “I think we’re dealing with drunk kids who don’t know how to handle their beer.”

Didan said he has so far declined to file a legal claim against management or press charges against any students, even when he’s been able to identify from which room the objects have been thrown.

“We always said, ‘Look, we’re neighbors. Let’s work something out,’” he said.

In April he organized an open-house block party to introduce the dorm’s residents to the center, in the hopes they’d show it more respect. He bought tons of food and sent out invitations.

“Very few showed up,” he said.

Didan has also been disappointed in the reaction of parents of students involved.

“It will take someone to die for them to rein in their kids,” he said.