WRPS already planning for next year’s St. Patrick’s Day

A crowd nearing the size of Owen Sound filled Ezra Avenue just a few days ago – and Regional Police are already preparing for next year’s event.

Crowd numbers, policing costs, and criminal code charges from the unsanctioned St. Patrick’s Day street party were way up compared to last year.

WRPS Chief Bryan Larkin says he’s very proud of their operational planning and the Universities – but naturally, there’s still lots of work that needs to be done.

“We saw a significant increase with 22,400 people on Ezra Avenue alone. We obviously want to scale-back the event, and tried to keep the roadway open for as long as possible – but it became unsafe, and we had to move to containment mode.”

When you look at enforcement numbers – Larkin says they tripled from 2017.

“The message of being firm and fair – we were very consistent, and took a good approach on enforcing liquor laws. At the end of the day – people ask me if this was successful, because we didn’t keep the road open. In short – I’m very pleased with the outcome. There’s no significant or life-threatening injuries. When you have a crowd near the size of Owen Sound, all consuming alcohol .. we were able to contain that.”

Larkin says a concern was seeing 27 disturbances reported.

“That’s something we haven’t seen necessarily in the past – criminal code charges are also up to 18 from 3 the previous year. Those are indicators and flags. There was a weapons incident on University Avenue – officers intervened, and prevented tragedy. At the end of the day, we should pause and celebrate our successes.”

That being said – Larkin adds they’re already planning for next year.

“We’re looking at how do we phase out, and eliminate these larger unlawful street parties. The larger piece has to be working with our student population – we need to know why this is occurring, and what’s the underline cause.”

There’s no preliminary estimate regarding costs – but last year, WRPS were in the range of $120,000.

“Obviously, the policing cost will be greater than that this year. There’s a couple of different driving factors for that – one is because it was on a Saturday, and we contracted a crowd management team from the Peel Regional Police Service. So we naturally recognize that because of our enhanced policing model, and different implemented policies – there will be increased cost.”

In total, 42 officers were brought in from Peel Region to help with St. Patrick’s Day on Ezra Avenue.

When it comes to shutting down the massive street party – Chief Larkin says that’s the ‘22,400 person’ question.

“This was phase one – we wanted to send a very strong message that we’re hearing from our community and stakeholders, and quite frankly from a Chief’s perspective – this exhausts our resources and impacts public safety. We cannot continue down this road. The reality is – the majority of these party-goers are not from our Region either. So the question has to be, is this about Laurier, Waterloo, and Conestoga? Or is this about just a free-for-all?”

Larkin says their short-term commitment is to meet with stakeholders for a briefing, and then begin a larger dialogue and strategy with the University partners around working towards ending this.

“I talk about phase one – and in my mind, I guess I have a long-term 5-year plan on how to curtail and scale it back. We’ve experimented with a licensed tent previously – and the problem was, thousands kept rotating between the tent and the street party. There’s larger public policy that needs to be researched on this process, and that’s what were committed to.”

However, Larkin says using a tent again in the future isn’t completely out of the question – as everything has to be on the table when developing a strategy, and solution.

“We tried a very balanced approach for years, where we contained public safety and worked with the whole process to allow the party to be facilitated. In many ways – I think we’ve been the victims of our own success. That philosophical public policy approach led to larger numbers each year – I think we’ve always been firm and fair, but if we’re seeing numbers at 22,000 .. we don’t want to see growth projection, we want elimination – so everything is on the table as we look to achieve that.”

In April, WRPS will present the Police Services Board with a more significant report on the financial, resource, and equipment implications. They’ll also look at different past processes, and provide a 5-year historical view of the gathering on Ezra.

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