11-23-2018, 09:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-23-2018, 09:11 PM by danbrotherston.)
(11-23-2018, 07:11 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(11-23-2018, 04:07 PM)urbd Wrote: What? no way. Do you want to live in a police state? Plus this would likely cost so much more money and resources than just having police walking around the party and supervising.
Well, on the one hand, I don’t think it’s really heading in the direction of a police state to insist that a particular road not be obstructed by pedestrians. But on the other hand, I agree it would be very expensive, and even though I speculated about how to shut down the party entirely, I’m not really convinced that is necessary or even desireable. How bad is the party any way? To what extent is the policing cost essentially optional? Presumably we wouldn’t have such a party with no police supervision at all, but did they really need to spend $500,000 on it? Again, I don’t know. I don’t actually envy the chief at all: if he doesn’t do enough and a riot breaks out, he gets blamed. If he spends too much or is too heavy-handed, he gets blamed. It’s not at all obvious to me what he should do.
For the record, the police are the ones who shut the road down, they did so, correctly, for public safety, because the crowds on the sidewalk were so large.
My opinion is that the vast majority of the cost is totally unnecessary, they called in Peel Regional riot police, but this event was no more substantial or out of hand than many other big festivals in the city--especially those that involve consumption that are handled entirely in house.
Shutting the party down isn't feasible, at a fundamental level, we have the right to free assembly, you can attempt to harass the party into non-existence, like we often see with protesters, but fundamentally, the city cannot say, "no, you cannot assemble here peacefully" without violating some very fundamental rights.