Shootout before CIAA event alarmed neighbors. Could tighter rules on parties help?

Residents of uptown’s First Ward want to make it harder to get permits for parties near a neighborhood after a Feb. 25 shootout before the Feb. 25 CIAA Championship game.

The First Ward Neighborhood Association has asked the city to change how permits are granted for temporary parties or tents that are within 500 feet of a neighborhood.

The proposed changes include:

▪ Requiring someone to pull a permit within 30 days of an event.

▪ Requiring the organizer of a party to notify Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and neighbors of their event. The people who pull a permit would also need to hire an off-duty police officer to patrol it.

▪ Adding restrictions on the types of permits close to high-density residential areas.

Stephanie Gardner, who lives in First Ward, said she’s concerned that police didn’t patrol the temporary parties and tents adequately. Some of the parties were in parking lots in First Ward.

“I saw multiple patrol cars and several officers on every corner uptown near the EpiCentre starting Thursday evening,” she said in an email to the Observer. “I did not see the same police presence at the tented events across from First Ward Park. The events were listed in Charlotte Magazine and it was known ahead of time there would be parties and concerts there.”

CMPD has not made any arrests related to the Feb. 25 shooting, in which 100 bullets were fired.

Court documents show that CMPD detectives got approval from judges this month to conduct forensic investigations on two cellphones and an iPad found in a wrecked GMC Yukon believed to have been involved in the shooting. The damaged vehicle was found abandoned on the 600 block of North Caldwell Street.

Police say they also searched a heavily damaged black Dodge Caravan with multiple bullet holes and found four other abandoned cellphones, court documents say.

Police recovered about 100 spent shell casings from the road, fired from a variety of guns and a rifle.

CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams said last week she would not address the shooting, which she said was unrelated to any sanctioned event of the weeklong tournament.

The council’s public safety committee is scheduled to review First Ward’s request at a future meeting. Committee chair Julie Eiselt said the city is studying ways to make private parties safer.

“We are focusing on private parties,” she said. “The CIAA doesn’t know who (the people throwing the parties) are. We need to see what the permitting process is. Are they using the permit in the way they said they would intend to? How can we make this safer?”

Eiselt added: “We don’t want to throw out the CIAA. This could be any event.”

City Attorney Bob Hagemann said his staff recently started researching permit requirements for private parties that have concerned First Ward neighbors. Those events are usually monitored by the Fire Department, he said.

Vita Spiotti, who lives in First Ward, said she was surprised when the private parties continued after the shooting.

“I would think everything would’ve been shut down to protect the integrity and safety of the neighborhood,” she said in an email to the Observer.

This story was originally published March 15, 2017 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Shootout before CIAA event alarmed neighbors. Could tighter rules on parties help?."