DENVER — Denver police have another new plan to try to make LoDo safer, more than a month after a mass shooting outside of a bar in the entertainment district.
Officers will close two of the area's busiest blocks — one on Market and one on Larimer — to cars overnight for the busy Halloween weekend. Police said businesses in the area asked for the changes and the department agreed in hopes it would increase safety and reduce violence.
The department said it will close Market Street between 19th and 20th streets and Larimer Street between 20th and 21st streets on Friday and Saturday night between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.
"It’s a party night. We know they’ll be a lot of people down there," DPD Division Chief Aaron Sanchez said. "It was a good opportunity for us to try this knowing that we have a whole bunch of things going on at one time."
He said eliminating cars will give officers a more clear line of sight toward any potential problems, reduce congestion and better manage the crowds — particularly when bars close.
"That 2 a.m. bar closure puts a lot of people in the same place at one time and a lot of those people have had alcohol," Sanchez said. "We were trying to alleviate some of that congestion."
Whiskey Row, the bar outside of which a teenager shot five people last month, was among a group of businesses that lobbied for the road closures.
"We see the people cutting through cars, so shutting down streets like this on high traffic nights, weekends, just eliminates risks for pedestrians and that's what we're concerned about," said Whiskey Row spokesperson Lissa Druss.
She insisted the street closures are not an attempt to convince the city to create a block party atmosphere. "It's safety," she said. "When a customer feels safe in an area, they're going to go there. And we want people to cross the street and feel safe."
Halloween weekend is DPD's first time trying this. If it works, they said they might close down the streets at other busy times — like the Rockies' home opener, for example. If winter weather puts a damper on the crowds this weekend, they may try again another time, too.
"We would have this program in place that we can really dust it off and go back at it," said Sanchez. "Or if we feel it's very successful, continue with it on a weekly basis."
DPD thinks the street closures are also going to prevent the kind of violence that has plagued LoDo lately. Sanchez said fewer cars will give officers more clear lines of sight to see where problems are already developing.
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