Now that we’re two years past a global shutdown of public events due to the pandemic, the Philadelphia Inquirer has rounded up multiple festivals in our region that have been cancelled and/or disrupted by “unruly kids”, as the article’s author put it.
“A recent spate of unruly incidents involving juveniles and young adults at fairs, carnivals, and spring flings is threatening the future of family-friendly celebrations, as officials struggle to confront fights and disruptions they say are becoming more brazen in nature and often fueled by social media,” the article says.
The Gloucester Township Day festival on June 1 saw hundreds of young people acting “hostile to police, cursing, yelling,” according to Gloucester Township Police Chief David Harkins. “There was a lot of them doing TikTok videos, trying to make the officers look bad,” he said.
17 were arrested and multiple attendees suffered injuries, the Inquirer said.
Pennsauken Township’s Summer Kick Off saw the arrests of four young adults and two juveniles, resulting in an early end to the event.
According to Jeff Good of Good time Amusements, the phenomenon is country wide. Good’s carnival in Exton was reportedly shut down this spring due to a nearby fight.
“I got friends in Chicago, I got friends in Florida, it’s happening everywhere,” he told the Inquirer.
Other regional cancellations include the Broomall Fire Company Annual Carnival, the Dreamland Amusements Carnival at the Neshaminy Mall, the Exton Square Mall Carnival, the LEAD Fest Carnival at the Concord Mall, and Kennett Square’s Kennett Blooms festival.
The trend has also found its way to family beaches. As FOX43 reported, OCNJ police gave out 1,300 warnings to teenagers over Memorial Day weekend which saw several fights among large crowds of juveniles and a stabbing of a 15-year-old boy on the boardwalk.
The Inquirer story goes on to mention last month’s abrupt cancellation of the June Fete Fair in Upper Moreland Township over safety concerns:
“The collective opinion of our public safety officials is, that while additional security measures proposed in the revised permit application were appreciated, the high risk of safety and security issues remain,” Township Manager Patrick Stasio reportedly said in an email.
Stasio told the Inquirer, as he told Glenside Local, that the decision was borne by “fights, assaults, robberies, and gun violence that overloaded public safety resources and led to cancellations of partial or all of certain events within our immediate area.”
Abington Township commissioner John Spiegelman told the Inquirer the fair’s fate is “a sad situation” and “a psychological and emotional hit for folks around here.”
“You can’t cancel your way out of this, anymore than you can police your way out of this in the immediate term,” he said. “This is how things spiral. You could shut down the world for fear of anything.”
More of Spiegelman’s thoughts on the matter can be found here.
The full story can be found here.
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