Naked Pumpkin Run, Boulder Mall Crawl: Cops ready if they make a Halloween comeback
Last year at this time, Boulder Police were on high alert for fear that the annual Naked Pumpkin Run and a revival of the Boulder Mall Crawl on Halloween would lead to chaos. Two Mall Crawl organizers even received a personal visit from Boulder's police chief.
2005 Pumpkin Run.
In the end, the events were relatively low-key. But the BPD will be ready for trouble this weekend.
"We are definitely expecting a lot of activity on both Saturday and Sunday," says City of Boulder spokeswoman Sarah Huntley. "So police have made plans to provide extra staffing throughout the weekend. We'll have extra officers on hand should anything happen -- but we're very hopeful that, given the good experiences we had last year, everybody will have a peaceful and enjoyable time."
The Boulder Mall Crawl Facebook page, which last year called for a resurgence of an event that was banned in 1991 because of unruly, oversized crowds and damage to businesses, declares that "the city violated the constitutional rights of the two people who created this group in an effort to try to stop an amazing party" -- a reference to the aforementioned visits and other attendant warnings about liability for costs directed at Ryan Van Duzer and Jonathan Sackheim, the page's creators.
Boulder Mall Crawl booster Ryan Van Duzer.
Nonetheless, Van Duzer and Sackheim loved how Halloween on the mall went down last year -- the crowd was estimated at 4,000 -- and they're hoping to build on their success. The page's intro item states, "For 2010, not that we control it or speak for everybody, we merely suggest that you show up on Pearl St on the night of Sat, Oct 30. Do it to celebrate Halloween and to support Free Speech.
"We encourage mainly locals to come out as the parking garages will likely be shuttered, making it hard to drive in," the intro continues. "Let's have as much fun as possible and show how we can come together as a community by being respectful of each other, the police, and Boulder's property to have an epic Mall Crawl on Pearl St!"
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