Waterloo tightens parking ahead of St. Patrick’s Day
All cars found on certain streets over the weekend will be ticketed
Days ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, barriers and no-parking signs are already going up on Ezra Avenue in Waterloo, in an effort to contain potentially dangerous street parties.
The City of Waterloo is banning all street parking this weekend covering several city blocks bounded by Albert Street, Columbia Street, Weber Street and Bridgeport Road.
All vehicles parked on the street on Saturday or Sunday in the area will be ticketed, the city said.
City Coun. Julie Wright lives in the area and knows how out of control the parties can get.
“I’ve been through this every single year,” she said. “Most of the time it’s people who are egregiously intoxicated.”
Police did not provide a crowd estimate for 2023, but said last year’s celebration was “significantly larger” than in 2022, when about 4,000 revellers took to the streets in bright green hats, sweaters and boas. Police laid more than 230 charges and arrested 18 people.
Police, in collaboration with the City of Waterloo, paramedics, the universities and Conestoga College, and other community groups, have a full operational plan in place, said spokesperson Cherri Greeno.
“The whole collaboration has been about ensuring that people are safe,” Wright said, adding that the huge parties tie up public and health-care resources.
In 2019, crowds of as many as 33,000 people, including busloads of out-of-town partyers, clogged the streets in Waterloo’s university district and cost close to $1 million to manage.
The parking ban is one of several measures the city has added over the years to try to limit the nuisance of street parties and ensure public safety, Wright said.
Last fall, the city amended its nuisance bylaw to specifically include
“nuisance parties” and ban people sitting on roofs, a common occurrence during street parties. Earlier, it gave bylaw officers more powers to help tamp down on any street party.
The parking ban was tested out last year, and city staff found that traffic flow on smaller streets was better than during past events, and said it also discouraged out-of-town visitors. “It does become a significant hazard for emergency vehicles,” Wright said. “The streets really have been very congested during past events.”
Most of those clogging the streets during street parties have not been local residents, Wright said.
“It’s people coming either from out of town, which was especially the case in the prepandemic years, or friends of occupants parking on the street.”
She urged people to celebrate responsibly. “There’s lots of restaurants and pubs that are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. We just wish people would go uptown, have a good time, and stay off the street,” Wright added.
The weather may also help limit crowds. Although this week the region enjoyed sunshine and high temperatures well above normal, the forecast for St. Patrick’s Day is for a high of just 4 C, with a 60 per cent chance of rain or flurries.
Wilfrid Laurier University and the other partners “actively discourage students from attending large unsanctioned gatherings,” said spokesperson Vanessa Barrasa, who said the university is urging students “to make safety a priority and to avoid large unsanctioned gatherings.”