Police will enforce new curfew at Birkdale Village
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – Minors are no longer allowed at Birkdale Village in Huntersville without an adult after 6pm. This new policy is in response to a disturbance last weekend. Video posted on social media shows a group of teens dancing on a car and blocking traffic.
Jordan Miller says he was at North Italia when he noticed the crowd of at least 100 teens.
“I know just a few people can ruin it for the bunch but you have to have some sort of control over it, or things do get out of hand. People do get hurt, and things can get violent.” Jordan Miller, Birkdale Village Customer said.
Huntersville Police Chief Brian Vaughn says they got a call about a disturbance Saturday night and arrived within minutes but no crime was reported.
“The kids that were present worked with the officers and said, ‘Hey, need to leave’ and vacate the area and they respected those, those requests and immediately left the area.” Chief Vaughn said.
Minors are no longer allowed without an adult after 6pm. Birkdale Village will contract with Huntersville Police to enforce the rules.
“Birkdale village is actually hiring our officers off duty. We’ll have extra police out there for the foreseeable future, on the weekends that Birkdale village is paying for.” Chief Vaughn said.
Some teens are not sure the curfew will solve the problem.
“If you thought the 10 curfew would work but it didn’t why would the 6 work?,” a teenager asked. “From my perspective, I feel like [kids] just don’t care. Like, if they want to have fun, they will have fun.”
Some residents would like to see the community come together to find productive ways for kids to spend their time.
“I don’t like the light that they are putting on this because most of the kids that they are trying to demonize are black and brown kids,” Rachel Zwipf, Huntersville Resident said. “One of the ladies brought up ‘well, this is gangs’, I’m sorry you have no idea of what gangs are. These are teenagers looking for something to do, hanging out with their friend.”
Extra police will be out Friday night when the new curfew goes into effect.
