Danbury Mayor on Who Will Enforce Island + Ramp Closures

Danbury Mayor, Mark Boughton, joined the Ethan and Lou show in his regular weekly spot on Thursday (8/27/20) and discussed the Island and boat launch closures coming to Candlewood Lake. Ethan and Lou wanted to know what agency will be enforcing all of this.

This is what the Mayor had to say:

"So, this is not the most popular thing in the world, young people are ready to kill me, but I have to protect them. When you are eighteen or nineteen, you just don't think that way, right? So, here's what's gonna happen, both Lattins Cove and the City of Danbury ramps, closed. Now, we were one of the few ramps that allowed out of town people to use it."

He continued to say, "there are others, I think there is a ramp in New Fairfield, there may be ones in New Milford. Don't call and try to correct me but the other ramps are residents only, which really is illegal, you can't do that. In other words, I can't say only Danbury residents can use this beach, that was struck down by the Supreme Court. Having said all that, we've closed them down and then DEEP, which is a State arm, right, environmental protection, they made a deal with First Light for their officers to be able to enforce who is on the island. Now, one of the plans that DEEP came up with was look, if there's a bunch of people on the Danbury Island, the little island where the fireworks go off, we'll drive our boat over and your officers, we'll run them out there. I go yeah, I'll stick one of my officers among 200 partying people that have been drinking alcohol all day. I said that's not happening." Mayor Mark continued by saying, "we're trying to deescalate a lot of this kind of stuff, right? I don't want somebody getting arrested, or worse, because they won't listen to a police officer and he or she is put in a position where they have to, you know, enforce the law."

Mayor Mark mentioned that we don't own these islands, so since it's up to First Light, why cant they hire a security force to chase people off their property?

While this was a strong explanation, Ethan and Lou were still confused (not shocking) and the Mayor clarified further in the full segment below:

People are going to do people things and make this the world's biggest issue. The facts are, the coronavirus has spiked drastically in Danbury and trespassing is taking place on private property. I don't know what anyone wants to tell anyone. I like party and I'd love to hit an Island party on Candlewood, but I can't right now.

P.S. If you didn't bother to listen to the rest of the interview and still don't have the answers you crave, it basically boils down to this:

DEEP, in conjunction with another State agency, will be dealing with the islands and it's up to the cities and towns touching the lake to handle their boat ramps. The island parties may very well have contributed to the COVID spike, but the islands and ramps are separate when it comes to how these closures will be enforced.