Waterloo Police spend $267,000 on St. Patrick’s Day

A fenced-off Ezra Avenue in Waterloo wasn’t going to stop the unsanctioned street parties on St. Patrick’s Day, peaking at a crowd of 8,000.

People had seen the fences last year, and so, for a second straight year, the party full of university students moved to a neighbouring road, Marshall Street, before continuing to spill onto Regina Street.

Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) spent over a quarter of a million dollars responding to the festivities. Most of that was for overtime pay, totaling $181,000.

“These large street gatherings really are a nuisance in our community, we wish they weren’t happening,” said Dorothy McCabe, mayor of the City of Waterloo.

“We certainly very much value our students whether they are at the college or the two universities,” she continued. “But we ultimately do wish that we could spend this kind of money on something that would be more focused on a community good or a community benefit.”

McCabe also noted costs to the city itself also totaled in the ballpark of $100,000 for things like having fire crews on standby, the fencing, and by-law.

Meantime, with St. Patrick’s Day falling on a Friday, the WRPS also made sure resources were in place for Saturday, spending $13,000 on logistics and $26,000 for planning and analysis over the two-day period. On-duty salaries consumed $47,000.

“We’re grateful that it didn’t turn into a two-day event but we [also] had some costs that we’d incurred just in case that did happen,” added McCabe who also made a point to say, while these large, unsanctioned street parties are not unique to this region, local post-secondary schools could also be playing more of a role to help limit them.

“We think that the universities and colleges need to update and enforce their codes of conduct for their students who are participating,” she said. “So ya, there are ongoing conversations about this.”

WRPS says 230 charges were laid and 18 arrests were made this year.

The data revealed that 95 charges were related to the Highway Traffic Act. Ninety-three were with the Liquor License Control Act, and 17 were filed under the Criminal Code, both showing a decrease from last year.

Before 2022, the last annual Ezra Street gathering was before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

The WRPS listed a summary of this year’s charges and incidents ahead of Wednesday’s board meeting:

Liquor License Act: 93
Highway Traffic Act: 95
Criminal Code/CDSA: 17
Bylaw: 6
Trespass to Property Act: 0
Cannabis Control Act: 3
Other: 16
TOTAL: 230
Arrests: 18
Calls for Service: 119
Occurrences Generated: 497