Unruly teen behavior is jeopardizing the future of summer festivals and carnivals: ‘This is how things spiral’

The drone light show had ended, and families and their children were heading to their cars.

That’s when the teenagers began to brawl.

With lights dazzling overhead, hostilities flared among a group of hundreds of young people who arrived throughout the evening. By the time Gloucester Township Police Chief David Harkins realized he would need more officers, the gathering crossed over into chaos.

“They were hostile to police, cursing, yelling,” Harkins said. “We just moved them over to a parking lot, trying to keep it separated from the families. Then they just openly started fighting among themselves. There was a lot of them doing TikTok videos, trying to make the officers look bad.”

The unrest at the Gloucester Township Day festival on June 1 wasn’t an outlier, but an extreme example of a trend growing in visibility across the Philadelphia region.

A recent spate of unruly incidents involving juveniles and young adults at fairs, carnivals, and spring flings is threatening the future of family-friendly celebrations, as officials struggle to confront fights and disruptions they say are becoming more brazen in nature and often fueled by social media.

A week after young people in Gloucester clashed with police — resulting in 17 arrests and multiple injuries — another large group of juveniles descended on Pennsauken Township’s Summer Kick Off, where families had gathered to watch fireworks. That crowd, too, grew disruptive, police said. Four young adults and two juveniles were arrested, and the event ended early.

The disruptions are having a ripple effect. Besides evoking frustration among community members, the incidents have lawmakers calling for action and the tight-knit world of fair operators on edge over their industry’s future as permits are revoked and profits put in jeopardy.

“This stuff is just nonsense that does not need to happen,” said Jeff Good of Goodtime Amusements, a carnival operator who was shut down in Exton this spring after a fight broke out nearby. “I got friends in Chicago, I got friends in Florida, it’s happening everywhere.”

Harkins, a 29-year law enforcement veteran, had assumed the Gloucester celebration would go as smoothly as it had over the last four decades.

Instead, the police chief said, the unrest grew to a level he had never before seen at a family-oriented event.

Members of the crowd, many of them teenagers, cursed at officers and attempted to surround them as they broke up fights, according to Harkins. In one instance, a 33-year-old man rode his bike into the back of an officer, the police chief said.

He believes the meet-up was amplified by young people through social media.

Gloucester and Pennsauken officials have vowed not to cancel their events next year despite the unruly weekend. But as festival season enters its peak months, not all communities feel the same.

In May, officials in Upper Moreland Township announced that after a 111-year run, the Montgomery County community’s beloved June Fete Fair was canceled over public safety concerns.

“The collective opinion of our public safety officials is, that while additional security measures proposed in the revised permit application were appreciated, the high risk of safety and security issues remain,” said Township Manager Patrick Stasio in an email.

Stasio, without mentioning specific incidents, cited “fights, assaults, robberies, and gun violence that overloaded public safety resources and led to cancellations of partial or all of certain events within our immediate area.”

Other events disrupted or canceled over public safety concerns this year include the Broomall Fire Company Annual Carnival, the Dreamland Amusements Carnival at the Neshaminy Mall, the Exton Square Mall Carnival, the LEAD Fest Carnival at the Concord Mall, and Kennett Square’s Kennett Blooms festival.

Abington native John Spiegelman, a township commissioner, cherishes his memories of taking his daughter to the century-old June Fete, riding the Ferris wheel, small coasters, and enjoying other fairground staples.

“It’s a sad situation,” Spiegelman said. “It’s sort of a psychological and emotional hit for folks around here.”

Until recently, police departments had little reason to create elaborate public safety strategies for family-oriented events, with most work dedicated to keeping pedestrians safe from the influx of event-day traffic, according to Harkins.

Recent disruptions have Harkins and other New Jersey officials reconsidering their efforts.

Gloucester police typically staff about 50 or 60 officers to the spring celebration, according to Harkins; after observing reports of unruly teenage crowds at the Wildwood beach over Memorial Day Weekend, the police chief brought that figure closer to 70.

That still wasn’t enough, he said.

Gloucester police eventually called for support from nearby departments, bringing in an additional 40 officers — and the department “probably could have had more,” Harkins said.

Other festivals are taking note. In Burlington County, the St. Charles Borromeo Church’s carnival in Cinnaminson announced this week that it was increasing its law enforcement presence during the weeklong event.

Harkins did not say whether Gloucester Township Day would be more heavily policed in the future, though he suggested that the township was considering whether to start the event earlier in the evening.

For Pennsauken’s Summer Kick Off, police had staffed even more officers — about 85, according to Mayor Marco DiBattista — though Saturday’s disruptions required additional police from three separate counties.

“We will be tailoring our event in a fashion to not have another repeat,” said DiBattista, who had just left a meeting to discuss the future of Pennsauken’s celebration. “We’ve never had anything like this in the past.”

Adding more police could be a challenge, DiBattista said, as officers are already stretched thin with other duties.

“We’re only going to have an event if we feel we can protect the event,” the mayor said.

Ahead of the Exton Square Mall Carnival in May, Good, the operator of Goodtime Amusements, was ready for business.

The longtime carnival operator had a permit from local police and a safety sign-off from fire and EMS, and had erected fences around the festival’s perimeter for added security.

That didn’t stop the assault that resulted after a large, unruly group of teenagers gathered near the carnival’s entrance — which led West Whiteland Township police to revoke Good’s permit almost a week before his event was set to wrap.

Good, whose Hellertown company operates across eastern Pennsylvania, estimates the closure lost him more than $50,000 after expenses.

“This is a huge financial hit,” said Good, who was shocked that his company was penalized when he believes it was the responsibility of local police to control unruly gatherings. “It’s a shame,” Good added, “because it’s the community that’s losing out.”

Now Good’s tight-knit world of carnies is chattering from the Jersey Shore to Pittsburgh, and the operator believes there’s not a “snowball’s chance” that someone doesn’t go out of business within the next year due to cancellations.

Allen Bartlebaugh is also feeling the squeeze.

Bartlebaugh, of Bartlebaugh Amusements, was recently told by the sponsor of the Kennett Blooms festival that his event, which was supposed to take place over the weekend, was preemptively canceled based on the incidents in Exton and at the Jersey Shore.

It was a $30,000 hit, he said.

Now hoping to avoid other pricey shutdowns, Bartlebaugh and others in his industry are turning to tactics they hope will deter unaccompanied teenagers, fencing in their fairgrounds, and introducing cover charges.

A member of the Pennsylvania State Showmen’s Association, Bartlebaugh also hopes industry lobbyists will convince lawmakers to take action.

“If you’re citing public safety, you’re terrorizing the public,” Bartlebaugh said. “If there’s no retribution and there’s no parenting, someone’s got to be held accountable.”

New Jersey lawmakers such as State Assemblyman Dan Hutchison are heeding those calls.

Hutchison, a Democrat whose district covers the middle of the state’s Shore towns, is drafting a bill alongside party colleagues that aims to deter unruly teen behavior at public events and at the Shore. The announcement, inspired by the Gloucester incident, came with few specifics.

“We want to make sure we create stiff penalties that deter this conduct, whether it be participation in a melee, or organizing this type of melee over social media,” Hutchison said, adding that he plans to introduce the bill next week. “If you can prove that somebody participated in the organization of this type of conduct, that should be penalized and punished.”

“We shouldn’t have to have 150 police officers to protect the public,” he later added.

Community members, too, question whether heightened reactions are feasible.

“You can’t cancel your way out of this, anymore than you can police your way out of this in the immediate term,” said Spiegelman, the Abington commissioner, suggesting that a solution to youth unrest requires effort from teenagers’ parents and their school districts.

“This is how things spiral,” Spiegelman said. “You could shut down the world for fear of anything.”