Because it’s never too early to give State College a collective aneurysm about the impending doom and destruction of State Patty’s Day, mark the date: November 2, 2011 was the first time that we saw the 2012 event emerge in the news in a major way.

Yesterday, The Daily Collegian published an article in which a representative from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions said that the University would not give campus tours to prospective students on Saturday, February 25, 2012. Penn State acted in anticipation of State Patty’s Day continuing in the tradition of taking place on the last weekend in February, the week after THON. Following that, The School Philly promptly took it upon themselves to create a Facebook event for the day of mayhem and debauchery. In one day, it’s garnered almost 4,000 guests listed as “attending.”

State Patty’s Day has come to fracture the State College community into two warring factions: one (mainly students) bent on keeping the town painted green that day, and the other (notably local residents and University employees; generally non-students) who have condemned the prevalence of drinking that State Patty’s entails.

Undergraduate Admissions; and thereby, the University, took an interesting step by canceling these admissions tours for that day. They certainly had acknowledged the presence of the holiday in the past, repeatedly and emphatically speaking out against it. But, in a way, the University not carrying on with everything as usual for that day shows that they’ve acknowledged the foothold that State Patty’s has gained at Penn State.

Whether or not you support State Patty’s Day, one thing’s for sure: the debate (to put it lightly) over the drinking holiday has already begun, and we can expect it to be as contentious as it has been in the past couple of years—which causes a headache in its own right.

To complicate things even further, the real Saint Patrick’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, and not one included in spring break. Of course, the holiday originated a few years ago because St. Patrick’s Day came during Spring Break, and students felt deprived of their opportunity to paint the town green. But with no such concern this year, State Patty’s becomes especially needless.

If you do wish to get fired up about how much you love or hate State Patty’s, feel free to do so in the comments section below.