The Mardi Gras parade organizers have done the right thing by canceling their parade next year. It's a step in the right direction in putting the kibosh on future riots by local and visiting students who see the Mardi Gras weekend as an excuse to drunkenly trash the city of San Luis Obispo.

But, as city officials are aware - and they will be making law enforcement plans accordingly - it will take several years before the city's Mardi Gras reputation recedes from its promise of "beer, boobs and beads."

If students are rioting, as some letter writers to The Tribune have noted in the three months since the riots, then where is the university oversight of its students? Why can't Cal Poly step up to the plate and expel students who are arrested for riot-related actions?

The short answer is that the university doesn't exercise paternalistic control - known as "in loco parentis" - over what a student can or cannot do off campus.

It's a different issue once a student steps onto state property. This year's riots at Mustang Village, a railroad track away from campus, were off-limits to university oversight and control.

So what is a valid alternative to collaring college students - both local and from out of the area - who riot annually at a cost of some $500,000 to taxpayers?

The Tribune looked to the Midwest for the answer and may have found it in a law passed in Ohio last year. Some background: Ohio's three major universities - Ohio State, Ohio University and the University of Cincinnati - have all been plagued by annual student riots in which downtowns were ravaged, cars burned, windows broken, and students and law enforcement officials injured.

In Ohio State's case, the riots have occurred after OSU won "the big game" with Michigan.

Students at the University of Cincinnati have developed a nasty tradition of rioting during Cinco de Mayo. And Ohio University students, odd as it may sound, trash their downtown when clocks are turned forward for daylight saving time. Why? They feel robbed of an extra hour of bar-hopping.

However, there hasn't been a riot at any of these schools since 2002. That's because the Ohio Legislature adopted legislation in 2002 that place real consequences on students who are arrested for failing to disperse at the scene of a riot or emergency.

Here's how it works: Under the law, if a student at a state-funded college or university is arrested and found guilty of failure to disperse at a riot or emergency, he or she is immediately expelled, can't transfer or be admitted to another state school for one year, and loses scholarships and financial aid.

We asked Ohio State spokesperson Elizabeth Conlisk if the law was effective and found that the risks of just being a passive observer at a riot were too great for students.

"The law was designed," she explained, "to keep students from congregating in mass groups, groups so dense that police couldn't get to the rioting students within."

Parents are notified of the law before the start of school and before each of the universities' traditional riot periods. In addition, school athletic facilities like basketball courts and lighted volleyball courts are kept open during these times until 3 or 4 a.m. Conlisk called these "happy activities that go on late at night." Basically it just redirects student energies.

With knowledge of Ohio's law, we then asked Dan Howard-Greene, executive assistant to Cal Poly President Warren Baker, if the failure to disperse/expulsion law resonated with the university.

"On the face of it, it seems like it might have positive impacts," he said, "because students have an interest in their academic standards. It would also provide the campus and community options that they don't currently have: the ability of campuses to apply sanctions."

Whether or not the CSU Board of Trustees would support such legislation is unknown, although the board has taken positions on legislation in the past.

We next contacted the offices of Assemblyman Abel Maldonado and Sen. Bruce McPherson. Both legislators were within their districts and unavailable for comment. However, district aides noted that it's too late in the session to introduce new bills. If a failure to disperse/expulsion bill were to be introduced, it would be after the November elections - after McPherson terms out of office and the outcome of the Maldonado/Peg Pinard contest is known in the Senate.

For our part, we believe Ohio has cut the Gordian Knot that surrounds senseless student rioting. As such, we will be asking whoever may represent our county in 2005 to carry that message to the state Legislature.