MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) – Fake Patty’s Day, one of Manhattan’s biggest and most dangerous party days of the year, is this Saturday.
Riley County Police Department says it’s gearing up.
“We have extra personnel, we’re able to move around a little bit of our assignments so that we have the majority of our agency working that day,” RCPD Lt. Dustin Weiszbrod said. “So we divvied out those assignments this week and the officers are prepared for the day Saturday.”
The police department is just one of the groups strengthening its numbers in preparation.
“If they’ve got, say 25 employees working, 15, 18 of them are going to be running security,” Aggieville Business Association Executive Director Dennis Cook said. “The rest of them are the ones who are serving the customers.”
“I tell my staff it’s like our Super Bowl,” Johnny Kaw’s General Manager Jake Quinn said. “We’ve trained for this, we’ve corrected our operations, we’ve updated our operations and systems and procedures to allow us to operate with this many people.”
Kansas State University students typically spend the day drinking and drifting throughout different neighborhoods.
“We just have a bunch of guys constantly driving around making sure everyone’ being safe,” KSU Sigma Chi member Noah Brueggemann said. “Everyone’s being not too crazy, everyone’s supposed to keep themselves under control as well.”
RCPD says it prefers crowds head downtown instead, and the district’s business owners agree it’s the safer place to be.
“This is the best place to be and you know what you’re going to get,” Cook said. “Whereas if you’re in the neighborhoods, you don’t know whose property that you don’t know what’s going on.”
“We’re able to oversee this event if we centralize it a lot easier,” Quinn said. “We’re able to, you know, keep these safety issues from happening. We’re able to see everything in a smaller, confined area.”
Lt. Weiszbrod urges anyone joining in on Fake Patty’s celebrations to avoid driving under the influence. He also notes the city has various ride share and public transportation options available.
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