Towson melee was waiting to happen

The riots this past weekend in Towson should not be a surprise, and the disturbance was not an isolated incident. The weekends in downtown Towson have been a time bomb waiting to explode. The colleges in the Towson area continue to grow with inadequate housing, thus nearly every apartment and condo complex in Towson has college students living in it. Add to this, the daily influx of teens coming in from Baltimore City to hang out at the Towson Town Center, and you get more confrontations and an increase in crime. Mix in the easy availability of alcohol in Towson and you get a riot.

The problem, is county officials have always refused to acknowledge that Towson is more like College Park than Georgetown. Once they do, we can begin to provide the community and the college students with the proper resources to ensure that Towson remains a safe place to live, shop and go to school.

Mike Gimbel, Timonium

The writer is the former Baltimore County director of substance abuse.