A group of city officials, business owners and police came together Tuesday to discuss strategies to calm the masses of students and visitors on State Street next Halloween night and prevent disturbances like last year’s riots.
The group discussed making Halloween an all-day event and debated whether the spread-out alcohol consumption would mellow the crowd and turn the holiday weekend into an event like the Mifflin Street Block Party.
LaMarr Billups, interim adviser to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, attended the meeting and said an all-day event might help compose the street’s atmosphere, although he didn’t think it would this year with Halloween landing on a Friday.
“If activities started early, by the end of the day a lot of folks would be tuckered out,” Billups said. “At the next meeting we will talk to the university about how they can participate and coordinate activities.”
He said he hoped the university would provide alternatives for partiers to “spread out the crowd” so the police could implement more control over the disturbances.
Billups said the police force plans to change its enforcement strategy next Halloween so they are not “caught” with an inadequate police force on the wrong day, as was the case last semester.
“They will have a three-day plan for Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” Billups said. “Even though Friday is Halloween, Saturday is always the big party day.”
Police called on more than 100 officers last Halloween to quell the riots.
Billups said the task force would meet once a month until Halloween, with more meetings in September and October as the holiday draws near.
The group discussed ways to better tune in to the students so they know in advance when most of the parties will be, as well as discern where students imbibe so much alcohol in order to curb the amount of consumption.
The task force also discussed holding a neighborhood meeting prior to Halloween, as currently done for Mifflin Street residents prior to the Block Party.
The task force’s next meeting is slated for June. Police initiated the group discussions last month to prepare for the Halloween weekend.
Halloween night on State Street was relatively peaceful for three decades until last October, when the police wore riot gear and used tear gas to break up crowds that were smashing windows, lighting fires in the street and throwing bottles at the police around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The riot began when someone knocked out a UW senior in a white bunny costume. Police said they cleared the crowd from the 500 block of State Street by 5 a.m., but the masses spread through the rest of State Street and onto Gilman Street, continuing to create a disturbance.
Out of a crowd of 65,000 on State Street that day, police arrested 16 people, and damage to State Street businesses totaled $21,000 in vandalism and stolen property. City officials agreed that UW-Madison students were not to blame for the riots, but rather the visitors from out of town. No UW students were arrested for the rioting. The violence injured several students and 13 officers.
