After the tragic shooting of high school senior Kiante Campbell at last month’s First Friday, it was inevitable that the event would change in some way; last week, I wrote about some of the specifically drinking-related changes, but yesterday the City released an official statement enumerating the ways in which tomorrow’s event will be different — namely, the footprint will be significantly smaller, stretching along Telegraph between 27th and West Grand rather than down to 16th; public drinking “will not be allowed,” meaning cops will be issuing tickets; the (officially sanctioned) portion of the evening will end at 9 instead of 10; and there’ll be several events and attractions oriented toward promoting peace and honoring Campbell.
All of which will hopefully help tamp down some of the chaos, though as I think we’ve seen, First Fridays has taken on something of a life of its own, and it’s really, really hard to get 10,000 people to do much of anything in an orderly fashion — let alone follow new rules for an event that’s essentially had none for the past several months. And though Sean Maher, the Mayor’s communications director, said the City doesn’t discuss specific numbers when it comes to how many cops will be out on the street tomorrow night, it’s safe to say the ratio won’t be in their favor when it comes to issuing citations of clearing the streets — unless, of course there’s a significant drop in attendance (which is definitely possible!). Anyway, we’ll let you know what happens.
