The reasons for shutting down the late-night Thursday parties at Café Nexus are, according to CBS’ Senior Management, an unhealthy drinking culture and complaints about noise and vandalism.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing repeated incidents of conflicts, noise and vandalism caused by guests; examples of transgressive behaviour, as also seen at night club parties elsewhere; alcohol consumption far exceeding the Danish Health Authority’s recommendations; and guards have also confiscated drugs. Quite simply, the parties at Café Nexus have reached a point where we have to say stop,” says acting President of CBS, Inger Askehave in a CBS press release.

The Senior Management also claims that an increasing number of guests participating in Thursday parties at Nexus have occupied group rooms on campus and disturbed students with late classes on Thursdays.

As a result, Nexus will be reduced to the status of simply a student café from 1 August 2022 with opening hours from 8 am to 8 pm every weekday, instead of from 10 am to 3 am on Thursdays. It will still be possible to buy alcoholic beverages but with a maximum content of 6 percent alcohol.

“It has been a tough decision, but the parties have just become too wild and more raw in the last couple of years. Also because of guests sneaking in from outside campus. As owners of the facilities, we can no longer support nightclub parties and are therefore ending them now. It is not up for negotiation,” Inger Askehave states to BT.

CBS Students has started a petition to help Nexus

For the staff at Café Nexus, the news that they will have to cease holding their Thursday parties is saddening. They do not recognize the picture painted by the Senior Management of how the Thursday parties are run.

“We work hard to ensure that the Thursday parties are an inclusive space for students to socialize and forge lasting social relationships. The description that CBS gives of Café Nexus is not something we recognize. If students have experienced inappropriate behaviour, we are sorry and encourage them to come forward and advise us of such situations, so we can find ways to help avoid such occurrences in the future,” they write in a statement on Facebook.

(Photo by Ida Eriksen)

CBS Students also disagrees with the management’s description of the parties at NEXUS.

“We are really sad about the way that NEXUS is being portrayed by CBS and we don’t agree with the way the Thursday parties are portrayed. We instead wish that CBS had presented this information to us so that we could have worked together on improving it instead of CBS closing Thursday parties down all together,” says President of CBS Students, Mikkel August Wallind and adds:

“Once again, we have not been included in decisions directly affecting students and their social life.”

To ensure that students will be included in future decisions impacting their daily lives on campus, CBS Students has started an online petition called ‘Save Nexus 22’. Here, students are encouraged to sign their name and support the following:

• Opposition to the lack of student involvement in the decision-making process
• Café Nexus receiving support from CBS to reshape its activities
• CBS initiating other projects to support the social environment for students
• The necessity of involving students going forward

“We’d really hoped that CBS would have reached out to us to talk this through before reaching a decision. If they really believe we have a problem, we’re confident that we could have worked together to find a better solution than removing a part of the students’ social lives,” Mikkel August Wallind concludes.

Here is Leonor who is serving beverages and food at Café NEXUS. She is part of the staff that will be affected by the shutdown of the Thursday parties. (Photo by Ida Eriksen)