The New Jersey shore town Wildwood closed its popular boardwalk for a few hours early Sunday morning after hordes of “unruly, undisciplined” teens descended on the walkway, local officials said.
Police shut down the boardwalk to the public just past midnight after receiving an “irrepressible number” of complaints about an “extremely large number of young adults & juveniles” visiting the boardwalk for Memorial Day Weekend, according to a statement from authorities.
City officials did not cite a specific incident that led them to shut down the boardwalk, but claimed that cops were addressing “civil unrest.” Conditions “began to deteriorate despite the presence and efforts of local police officers and multiple mutual aid law enforcement agencies,” the statement adds.
Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano, Jr. said that the city had declared a “state of emergency” – which allows it to send an abnormally large police presence to the area – and blamed the situation on “unruly” teens.
“Wildwood will not tolerate unruly, undisciplined, unparented children nor will we stand by while the laws of the state tie the hands of the police,” Troiano, Jr said in a news release.
“We wholeheartedly support the City of Wildwood Police Department in protecting this community from these nuisance crowds on our boardwalk and in the city,” the mayor added.
Local cops were so busy responding to the “unrest” on the boardwalk that “we were unable to respond to certain calls for service within the city for a period of time,” Wildwood city officials said in the statement.
Police re-opened the boardwalk at around 5:30 a.m., removing police tape that had been set up at the walkway’s entrances, according to a report from NBC10 Philadelphia.
A rainstorm that erupted overnight also helped disperse whatever crowds remained, video from the scene shows.
Local authorities said they would be giving “no further statements or interviews” explaining why they declared the state of emergency “in honor of the solemness” of the Memorial Day holiday.
The boardwalk shutdown comes a day after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed on the boardwalk in nearby Ocean City Saturday night, spending panicked crowds of beachgoers fleeing the area.
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