HemisFair has been a staple for the San Antonio community since the 1960s when it was the site of the 1968 World’s Fair. For decades, it’s had 24-hour access, but soon, it may be subject to a nightly closing time like most parks overseen by the City of San Antonio.
On Friday, the San Antonio City Council’s public safety committee discussed removing HemisFair from a list of parks exempted from its city-wide 11:00 p.m. parks curfew. Currently, the exemption list includes the River Walk between Josephine Street and Eagleland Drive, Alamo Plaza, La Villita, Market Square, Woodlawn Lake Park, which closes at midnight, and HemisFair.
By city ordinance, violating a park curfew could result in a citation, equal to a class C misdemeanor but officers largely have discretion on whether or not to ticket.
Recent security concerns in HemisFair have been reported by residents and neighboring businesses. Assistant City Manager Lori Houston told the committee that operating hours listed by the HemisFair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation are not enforceable.
“HPARC has adopted operating hours for the park, and their operating hours state that the park will close at midnight, but legally we can’t enforce that because it’s not included in our city code," Houston said.
The city’s recommendations include the curfew, increased police presence, and additional lighting. However, Houston noted that there would need to be an exemption in place for people who live in HemisFair like those at the ‘68 apartment building.
District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez is opposed to the park's curfew expressing concern for people who may be walking through the park. The councilman, however, was in favor of implementing other solutions to limit safety concerns including better lighting throughout the park and or increased police presence during the evenings.
“It sounds like those are the things that are actually wanted, and that the curfew is just an opportunity to cite random people who just so happen to be there, and many of them could be my residents who are just walking from Dignowity Hill, Denver Heights into the park, and I won’t want to see something like that happen,” he said.
District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur, who represents the downtown and HemisFair brought the issue forward after concerns from residents and business owners.
“Anyone walking through the park whether they are living there or not, as long as they’re walking through would not be cited,” she said. “The idea is to prevent people loitering, or just hanging out and drinking in the park, essentially after hours.”
She suggested the city consider a 5–6-month pilot program to the park's curfew.
Over the last three years, there were 2,378 calls made to 911 from the HemisFair area, according to Maria Vargas, with the city’s Office of Integrated Community Safety
Among those, the most active hours of calls were 6:00 a.m. with 208 calls; the second highest was 10:00 p.m. with 206 calls, and the third highest at 2:00 p.m. with 173 calls made to 911.
Vargas noted that many of the calls were from police in the area or passing and reporting disturbances.
McKee-Rodriguez questioned why the curfew would be needed because most of the incidents were taking place outside the proposed times.
“For the majority of those to be taking place during a time that wouldn’t be addressed by this curfew is a little problematic,” he said.
The committee approved moving the initiative forward, one of the first steps in the process before the full city council would consider it, potentially on August 7 after the council’s July recess.
