50,000 Packed Church Street for Halloween. Now the City Wants a Safer Festival

Toronto's biggest Halloween street party drew about 50,000 people to the Church-Wellesley Village over the weekend. Now community advocates, the local councillor-elect, the mayor and the police chief all say the festival needs a rethink, CBC News reported.

The two-night Halloween on Church festival was marketed as Canada's biggest Halloween bash. Toronto police had estimated that more than 80,000 people would attend. Police Chief Myron Demkiw said Monday that around 50,000 turned out.

"Shoulder-to-shoulder"

Travis Myers co-founded Friends of Hanlan's, a 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy group. He told CBC that Church Street was "shoulder-to-shoulder" and that it took him about 45 minutes to walk a single city block. "By the time I reached the next intersection, I was ready to dip," he said.

After the festival, Myers said, many community members contacted the group to report incidents ranging from pickpocketing to verbal and sexual assault. He added that the 2SLGBTQ+ community has a "fractured" relationship with police, so not every incident may have been reported.

"It really doesn't seem like there was a great effort that was taken to protect the people of this community," Myers said.

What police say happened

Toronto police spokesperson Nadine Ramadan said the event drew "particularly large crowds". "As attendance increased, additional officers were deployed from across the city to support crowd management and public safety," she said.

According to Ramadan, the most common festival-related calls on Saturday were for pickpocketing and cellphone thefts. CBC asked police whether there had been reports of sexual assault or harassment. Police did not comment.

Organizers, mayor and chief respond

George Pratt chairs the Church-Wellesley BIA, which organizes the festival. He said the BIA will meet with the city to "debrief". "It seems to be growing every year. I don't know what the solution is but hopefully we'll make it less congested," he said.

At an unrelated news conference Monday, Demkiw said police and the city are working on best practices for planning street festivals. "Whenever you have street festivals happening, we do our best to work with the local community to ensure the environment is as safe as possible," he said.

Mayor Olivia Chow attended the same event. "Street festivals need to be done in a way that is safe," she said. She added that she will be "working very closely" with the Church BIA and local communities on how the festival "can be structured better." UrbanToronto's Nov. 3 roundup also noted that the mayor and police are looking to improve Halloween on Church.

A summer of festival worries

This is not the first time this year that crowds at a Toronto street festival have raised concerns. In the summer, huge crowds at Do West Fest prompted an early shutdown. About a month later, the Salsa on St. Clair shooting in July raised questions about how safety is managed at such events.

Keeping the village at the centre

Curran Stikuts is the councillor-elect for Toronto Centre, the ward that includes the village. He said Halloween is an important part of the city's queer history, but that its rapid growth has put "real pressures" on the neighbourhood. "There are tens of thousands of people who are coming down to this area for Halloween every year now, and that requires a more fulsome response from the city," he said.

Myers wants future branding to centre the 2SLGBTQ+ community. He said many visitors don't realize they are in a queer space in the "middle of the Gay Village". "I heard people asking why there were so many drag queens around them. You're on Church Street, honey," he said.

The BIA's debrief with the city has not yet been scheduled publicly. Any changes to the festival's size, layout or policing would be expected to come out of those talks.