Less than two weeks before St. Patrick’s Day, the City of Waterloo has given its bylaw officers new powers which could help maintain order at the traditional March 17 street party.

City councillors voted Monday in favour of revisions to the city's property standards and public nuisance bylaws.

Although the revisions don’t specifically mention St. Patrick’s Day, they could lead to changes in how the city deals with that day’s gathering on Ezra Avenue.

“It could be used in a variety of circumstances,” Shayne Turner, the city’s director of municipal enforcement services, said in an interview.

“Could they be applied during a large gathering? Yes, they could be.”

Following Monday’s ratification, Waterloo’s property standards bylaw now explicitly applies to any situation which is considered a safety concern, allowing bylaw officers to act immediately to end the safety concern.

The public nuisance bylaw was amended to cover situations where large gatherings on private property grow to the point where sidewalks and/or roads are blocked. In those cases, the city is now able to force organizers of those gatherings to keep the crowd under control, and to bill them for cleanup costs.

“It gives us an added tool to deal with that, and also to hold people accountable if there’s any impact on public safety that has a cost associated with it,” Turner said.

“We want to make sure … people aren’t put at risk in terms of vehicles coming on the streets when the crowds are overflowing.”

People found violating the bylaws could face fines of up to $300 on the spot or up to $5,000 through the court system.

The St. Patrick’s Day party on Ezra Avenue has grown significantly in recent years, with police estimating that 15,000 people were in attendance in 2017, up significantly from 5,000 two years earlier.

Authorities have repeatedly stressed that the party is growing beyond their ability to manage effectively. This year, Waterloo Regional Police are bringing in out-of-town officers for assistance and plan to try and stop the party from spilling onto the street in the first place.

Officials in Waterloo talked to their counterparts in Guelph and London – two other cities known for occasional large gatherings of university students – in coming up with these new rules.

With reporting by Maleeha Sheikh