City, emergency services prep for massive St. Patrick's Day street party
Ezra Avenue parties attract thousands of students each year
The City of Waterloo is bracing for another massive street party on St. Patrick's Day.
Previous years have seen crowds in the tens of thousands gather on Waterloo's Ezra Avenue. All previous efforts to prevent massive crowds have failed.
"We're really focusing on increasing our actions to hold people accountable," said Shayne Turner, the City of Waterloo's director of Municipal Enforcement Services.
He said some of the city's big concerns are noise, intoxication, traffic control and parking, and they've dealt with those in recent years by increasing charges.
Police say they're planing to use "crowd management pods," a system they tested out during this year's homecoming.
That's according to Const. Andre Johnson with the Waterloo Regional Police Service.
"The pods are set up with some scaffolding and allows officers to look over the crowd," said "It also disrupts the flow of having everyone congregated in one area and helps to split up the crowd."
Regional paramedics plan all year for the annual spike in calls.
"The vast majority of the calls are substance and alcohol abuse or secondary to that," said Stephen Van Valkenburg, chief of the Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services. "We do get calls for fractures, like broken legs, broken arms, things like that — people falling unconscious."
Van Valkenburg told CBC News, last year, the region spent an additional $85,000 on paramedic services for St. Patrick's Day.
Stretcher used as 'Go-kart'
He said, in recent years, his crews have had difficulties getting through dense crowd to attend to some of the calls.
"Usually it's it's not too serious, but we have had instances of beer bottles of beer cans being thrown at the responders, people taking our stretchers and trying to use them as a Go-kart type thing down the hill," said Van Valkenburg.
He said he hopes partiers take it a little easier this year.
"Make sure that you're with a friend, make sure that you have your contact information with you, don't overindulge," he said. "Just be be mindful and thoughtful about how you're going about it."
St. Patrick's Day falls on Tuesday, March 17.