The Police of Finland’s new interpretation of the Assembly Law – from Alcohol Law’s perspective sits parties* are still illegal.

*A sits party, also known as ”sitsit”, is an event organised by one or multiple student associations. Participating can be called “sitsaus” or ”sitsing”. The event typically requires participants to buy a ticket that includes food and some drinks, and the event itself involves singing together from a given pamphlet or an association’s songbook, eating and drinking at long tables. Each association has its customs, but the event structure and general rules are similar. 

The Police of Finland and the Regional State Administrative Agency have specified their interpretation of the Assembly Law, which clarifies the organising of student events. 

The interpretative nature of the Assembly Law has previously required a case-by-case assessment of whether the event is private or public. 

“We’ve generally presumed that if, for example, an individual subject association is organising a sits party for their members, in a separately rented venue, it’s a private event that doesn’t require a public event notice to the police”, explains Chief Inspector Sari Sinivuori from the Central Finland Police Department’s Licence Supervision Unit. 

Sits co-organised by multiple subject associations have not met the criteria for the definition of a private event in the past either, according to Sinivuori, for example, because all attendees are not familiar with each other beforehand. 

An event like this has been and continues to be, obligated to make a public event notice to the police. However, according to the new interpretation the police would not necessarily view the event as a public event. 

“Based on the new interpretation, there is a third existing category that falls in between a private event and a public event.” 

Attending an event like this requires a separate invitation or a specific community’s membership, but without it being a gathering of such a small circle where all attendees would know each other beforehand. Exactly like a sits party by multiple subject associations, for example, would be an event of this in-between-category. 

For such an event to remain a private event requires attendees’ invitations to be verified upon entry to the event, Sinivuori states. 

“Practically, if the event can be attended by other than those invited or those classified as belonging to a specific community, the event will be seen as a public event. For example, an appro or other large open events don’t belong to this category”, Sinivuori specifies. 

Sits still break the Alcohol Law 

The Regional State Administrative Agency’s interpretation aligns with that of the Police of Finland on the matter. If the events do not fulfil the definition of a public event, and they are organised in a private space and not, for example, in a restaurant with an alcohol serving license, enjoying personal drinks at them is allowed. 

Sits parties can still break the Alcohol Law if the entrance ticket price includes alcoholic beverages. Without an alcohol serving licence, the Alcohol Law prohibits this unequivocally. The price of a temporary alcohol serving licence is just under one thousand euros, which may be completely out-of-budget option for almost any subject association. 

The Regional State Administrative Agency states, that last year no student event applied for a temporary alcohol-serving licence, aside from Kiskofest, in Tampere. Kiskofest is an event consisting of an appro and festival-type after-party, organised at Tampere city centre and Ratinanniemi. 

Senior Officer Anssi Flink from the Regional State Administrative Agency for Western and Inland Finland, suspects the missing licences to simply be due to lack of information. 

“Many are taken by surprise by the information, that a public event notice should be given to the police.” 

At the end of October, Yle reported many student events to be breaking the Alcohol Law. Flink tells that after the article was published, the Regional State Administrative Agency has received invitations to multiple cities to train student unions on this matter. 

“Training events have been held, at least, at the Universities of Jyväskylä and Eastern Finland.” 

TREY’s Specialist in Events and Community Sami Perkiö says, that a similar training is in the plans to be ordered for TREY and for subject associations’ representatives during the spring. 

Organisers in a tough spot 

The Police of Finland and the Regional State Administrative Agency’s policy’s goal is thus to make organising student events more predictable, and on the other hand, organisers are better informed about legislation, requirements and responsibilities related to events, after this information being communicated. 

Yet, the truth is that, although many student events have mainly been illegal so far, they will continue to be so moving forward, even if a public event notice was to be sent to the police. 

“Selling alcohol in exchange for money without an alcohol serving license has not been legal before, when the police have not been notified of the event, and based on the Alcohol law, it still isn’t legal even if one was made”, Chief Inspector Sinivuori summarises. 

How the amount of supervision and possibly increasing amount of communications will affect this, remains a question. Currently, student events breaking the Alcohol Law are not a large phenomenon from the perspective of criminal investigations, although they are organised weekly in Tampere. 

“In my own experience the amount [of registered cases] is insignificant”, describes Detective Superintendent Pasi Mettälä from the Central Finland Police Department. 

Both Mettälä and Sinivuori agree, that the biggest affecting factor is the police’s possibility to hear about the organising of these events at all. 

“The event may be organised without licenses and thus the police may not become aware of it.” 

From the organisers’ standpoint, the situation is somewhat challenging. Sits can be legally organised either by waiving entrance fees and service or by acquiring an expensive, temporary alcohol-serving licence. Or then the event is organised illegally as before, and hope that the police will not catch wind of the matter. 

The Central Finland Police Department did not want to comment if the potential increase in public event notices would increase supervision as well. 

“In principle, in this society, we shouldn’t attempt to do things illegally in some way, if the assumption is that they won’t be monitored by anyone. The point in all of this is that we have certain rules which we comply by, and everyone is fundamentally responsible for doing so without monitoring”, Sinivuori states.