One of the things that I really enjoy at the Thursday at the Square concert series is watching all of the young people congregate on Main Street. Last evening I found out that there is a new policy in place that forbids these kids from hanging out near Lafayette Square. From what I understand, a couple of fights broke out last Thursday and a shop window got broken. I can understand that there should be a concern when these incidents happen, but shooing everyone away because a couple of bad eggs stir up some trouble?
Last evening police officers told the kids to “Move along” so that they couldn’t even stand for a few moments to talk. I was talking to Justin Booth who was running the bike valet service (all total there were four of us standing there with our bikes) and we were told to “Get a move on”. I could hardly believe it. Here we are trying to find reasons to bring people downtown (and it works quite well on Thursdays), and now you can’t stand around and talk to friends on Main Street during concert hours.
Of course I understand that there must be some sort of law and order when it comes to making the event a safe place to be. And if a group appears to be getting too big or unruly then it should be ‘fair game’ to break them up. I always admired the concert series for turning downtown into a place where everyone is welcome to show their true colors – these kids feel at home there because they are free to be themselves. For them there is safety in numbers when it comes to feeling accepted… that’s why you only see them there on Thursday nights during the summer.
Is playing hacky sac no longer allowed during the concert? All the kids that normally play were gone last night. The only reason that the kids in the photo above were allowed to hang out was because they were getting their portraits done by artist Bill Coke. It was a totally different scene. Maybe if there was an increase in police presence and officers were told to break up groups of 25 and up? I’m not sure if that is the answer. I am sure however, that we should not be giving young people more reasons to get out of Buffalo.