Around 8,000 people attended the unsanctioned St. Patrick’s Day street party in Waterloo, Ont., according to a report which will be presented to the police service board on Wednesday.
The police’s estimate is twice what it was in 2022 and the largest the area has seen since prior to the pandemic in 2019 when the crowd of revelers reached 33,000 people.
Back in 2019, the parties were held on Ezra Avenue but over the last couple of years, the city and university have put fencing up on that street which the report says was an effective measure in pushing the crowd elsewhere.
“It was anticipated that the fencing infrastructure would result in smaller pop-up street
gatherings elsewhere in the University District,” the report reads.
“A gathering that peaked at approximately 8000 people occurred in the Marshall/Regina Street area during the early afternoon hours on March 17 and subsequently dispersed during the early evening hours.”
In the report, Waterloo Regional Police say they spent $267,000 on the event, a number which included $181,000 for overtime, $47,000 on on-duty salaries and a further $26,000 on planning and analysis.
Hundreds of charges were laid in connection with this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the University District of Waterloo, although given the doubling of crowd size, they remained on par with 2022.
There were 230 total charges laid this year, as opposed to 200 in 2022, with the majority of those coming from liquor licence or highway traffic offences.
The report says that calls for police service were way down this year, as there were only 119 in 2023 whereas there were 216 in 2022.
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