FARGO (AP) - Officers patrolling around a North Dakota State University orientation dance issued 36 citations outside and one inside the event over a three-hour period, most involving alcohol, police say.

Police cited people on their way to the Tuesday night event at the Bison Sports Arena, Sgt. Mathew Sanders said.

Officers - in marked patrol cars as well as unmarked cars, on bike patrol and in plain clothes - wrote 28 alcohol-related citations outside the building and one inside the event, police said. Seven citations were issued for urinating in public and one for littering, police said.

At last year's dance, 40 citations were issued in four hours for alcohol violations. A 20-year-old woman with a blood alcohol level of 0.275 percent and an 18-year-old man with a blood alcohol level of 0.4 percent were hospitalized.

NDSU and Theta Chi, the fraternity that sponsors the dance, discussed ending it after last year's incidents, said Dave Wahlberg, a North Dakota State University spokesman.

"It wasn't necessarily an option that was popular with a lot of folks," Walhberg said.

Wahlberg said the fraternity ultimately decided to continue the event, especially because $6 ticket proceeds are donated to the YWCA.

The fraternity contracted with five private security guards Tuesday night to work at the entrance. They checked bags and turned over people who were drunk or smelled of alcohol to police, said NDSU Police Capt. William MacDonald.

Sanders said before the dance that he would have five officers, including himself, on bicycles, six officers checking for underage drinking and two officers checking for intoxicated drivers. Eight of the officers are provided through grant money.

MacDonald said a temporary court ruling by Fargo Municipal Court Judge Tom Davies allows officers to issue citations to people committing certain drinking-related offenses rather than taking them to jail.

"We'll just have more time to enforce the violations now, since we're not going to be tied up in jail," MacDonald said.