St. Louis is putting a temporary juvenile curfew on the Grove for Pride weekend, tightening the rules for unaccompanied teens as crowds pour into the neighborhood. Under a new order, anyone under 17 who is not with an adult has to be off public streets starting at 8 p.m., with enforcement stretching into the early morning hours. City officials will also roll out street barriers and have lined up early closing times with Grove bars to help keep a lid on late night chaos.
Mayor Cara Spencer signed the order Thursday for the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood and presented it as a preemptive safety move ahead of Pride festivities. The directive blocks unaccompanied children under 17 from public spaces between 8:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. and calls for outreach and crowd management throughout the area. City leaders pointed to last year’s post Pride unrest, which included a large late night fight and two reported shootings, as a key reason for the tighter controls, according to First Alert 4.
Curfew details and exceptions
The order temporarily moves curfew hours earlier in Forest Park Southeast than the usual citywide rules. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department notes that standard juvenile curfew hours are midnight to 6 a.m. on Friday through Saturday and 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, with exceptions when a juvenile is supervised by a parent, heading directly home from work or a sponsored activity, or sitting on the porch of their residence, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. For the weekend of June 27 in the Grove, those hours tighten to the 8 p.m. cutoff, giving families and Pride goers a firm schedule to work around.
Why officials took this step
City leaders have pulled out short, targeted curfews before when weekends started to spiral, and each time it has sparked debate over how much to lean on enforcement versus youth services and parental responsibility. A March curfew shift downtown led to nearly two dozen juvenile detentions and revived calls to match stricter rules with more support for teens, as reported by St. Louis Magazine. Officials are pitching the Grove curfew as another temporary, focused tool to keep big Pride crowds safer while events go on as scheduled.
What to expect if you go
Visitors should expect barricades on Manchester Avenue between Boyle and Vandeventer, earlier last call at neighborhood bars, and a bigger footprint from police and city services throughout Pride weekend. Parents and guardians who plan to be in the Grove are being urged to make sure anyone under 17 has an adult with them after 8 p.m. Organizers still anticipate that planned Pride activities will move forward, just with extra layers of security and a stricter bedtime for teens.
