Editorial: Keep Halloween on Church Street, but Publish a Real Safety Plan Now

This is an editorial. It reflects the view of The Toronto Journal's staff, not a news report.

Halloween on Church Street is a Toronto tradition worth keeping. It is also a festival that has outgrown the space it lives in. Both things can be true, and the people responsible for it should start planning for next year now, not next October.

What happened

The facts are not in much dispute. Police had expected more than 80,000 people. Chief Myron Demkiw later said around 50,000 turned out. Even that smaller number packed the Church-Wellesley Village tightly. One community advocate told CBC News the street was "shoulder-to-shoulder". He said it took about 45 minutes to walk a single block.

After the event, community members reported incidents ranging from pickpocketing to verbal and sexual assault, according to the advocacy group Friends of Hanlan's. Police said the most common calls on Saturday were for pickpocketing and cellphone thefts, and that extra officers had to be brought in from across the city as crowds grew.

No one was killed or seriously hurt as far as has been reported. That is a relief, not a plan.

Everyone agrees. Now act.

It is encouraging that nobody is pretending there is no problem. The Church-Wellesley BIA, which organizes the event, says it will "debrief" with the city. Its chair said the festival "seems to be growing every year." Mayor Olivia Chow said "street festivals need to be done in a way that is safe". The police chief said police and the city are working on best practices for street festivals.

Agreement is a starting point. What the city needs next is a public plan with specific answers. It should be released well before next Halloween.

What a good plan would include

We are not crowd-safety engineers, and we would not pretend to know the right design. But a credible plan should address some basic questions:

• Capacity. How many people can the street actually hold safely? Is it time to extend the footprint onto side streets, or into a second site?
• Flow. Where are the entry and exit points? Are there one-way routes when crowds are heaviest?
• Reporting. Advocates say the 2SLGBTQ+ community has a "fractured" relationship with police, so not every incident may be reported. Community-run safety teams and anonymous reporting channels could help close that gap.
• Funding. A neighbourhood BIA should not carry the full cost of an event drawing tens of thousands from across the region.

Keep the party, fix the plumbing

The worst outcome would be to cancel the festival or shrink it until it loses its spirit. The Village has been a refuge and a celebration space for generations. Halloween on Church is part of that story.

The better outcome is for the city, police, the BIA and community groups to treat this year as a warning, and to show their work. Toronto has managed huge crowds before, at Pride, Caribana and championship parades. It can manage this one too, but only if planning starts while memories are fresh.

Facts in this editorial come from CBC News' reporting on the Halloween on Church festival. Our earlier news coverage is here.