Boulder Mall Crawl 2010: No Naked Pumpkin Run, smaller crowd, just three arrests

Large photo below.

Last week, we wondered if the 2010 Boulder Mall Crawl would top the previous year's revival of the event -- and if a Naked Pumpkin Run would take place in the wake of a new public nudity ordinance.

The answer? According to City of Boulder spokeswoman Sarah Huntley, the weekend's Mall Crawl was smaller -- and no Pumpkin Run took place. Could it have had something to do with the Dome wildfire, which caused evacuations the day before?

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Huntley can only speculate about whether "people coming from other areas may have decided it was too uncertain of a situation" to show up. "But I can tell you the smoke conditions as of Saturday afternoon were not significant."

Whatever the case, Huntley says Boulder Police estimate that about 3,000 people congregated on the mall Saturday evening -- the night on which the Boulder Mall Crawl Facebook page focused. That's down from 4,000 the year before. In addition, there were just three arrests -- one on a warrant, and the other two for what Huntley characterizes as "behavior-related" reasons. She adds that this total wouldn't be considered out of the ordinary if it had taken place on any non-holiday Saturday evening. And if there were any Naked Pumpkin Runners, none of them were seen by cops or complainers among the general public.

Although Huntley wasn't present for the bash, she says, "My understanding from the police department is that it was a very festive, fun atmosphere, and the vast majority of people were very mindful about the concerns for public safety and respectful of the merchants and the mall and their needs."

She touts communication between the police department and partners such as downtown organizations and the University of Colorado at Boulder, which sent out e-memos prior to Halloween, with helping everything run smoothly. "Any time you can give the community a sense of what the issues and the expectations are, this community has shown they understand and can respond accordingly," she maintains. "And that's great news."

More from our News archive: "Ryan Van Duzer on the Boulder cops -- and the aborted revival of the Boulder Mall Crawl."