Violence on 'Blue Mile' mars Oilers celebration
A predictable headline. The violence was a stabbing. Which has also occured during the ever popular Fringe Festival last year, and on other occasions on Whyte. The other stabbings and violence occured downtown. So linking it to the rowdy partying on Whyte as if it was the main event after the Oilers stomped the Sharks on Friday night is a bit much. Otherwise it was a party on Whyte. Except for the Riot Cops.No rioting broke out such as what happened in the Whyte Avenue area on Canada Day in 2001. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage occurred then.
The police closed off Whyte Avenue access at 99th Street within thirty minutes of the game ending. I know I watched them from my local pub where I enjoyed the game with the rest of the crew. Having learned from the July 1st riot the cops were in control of the Avenue. Any trashing would have been because of their armed and dangerous prescence, as if having riot cops appear. That is bound to provoke.
“I think as soon as the riot police come out, I think it creates a different attitude among everybody,” said Andrew Wilcox, who was in the crowd. “People have a sort of need to rebel.”
And as I have said here before since the area is overrun with bars and lounges they should have a tax for clean up placed on them. After all they already overcharge for beer.
Jenny Sherwin, a restaurant owner near the disturbance, said she was stuck hosing down pools of urine from the front of her store yesterday morning.
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