Berkley Days festival shut down for second straight year, open Sunday with new rules

Fights break out at Berkley Days

For the second year in a row, Saturday night fights broke out at Berkley Days, causing it to be shut down.

BERKLEY, Mich. (FOX 2) - In a near copy of last year, the Berkley Days festival was shut down around 7 p.m. May 11.

Last year, the festival was shut down at about 7 p.m. on Saturday night.

Police said the crowds got too rowdy this year, and caused the shutdown.

"Unfortunately, yet again the annual tradition of Berkley Days has been disrupted by fights breaking out amongst participating youth. Berkley Days has been shut down for the remainder of Saturday evening, the Berkley Department of Public Safety wrote on Facebook. "The safety of our community and Berkley Days’ participants is our top priority."

The event was open Sunday with new rules. Minors were required to be with a guardian, and wristbands had to be purchased.

"On behalf of Berkley Public Safety and our greater community, we send our sincere thanks and appreciation to our mutual aid partners who came out to support us in keeping everyone safe tonight," said Berkley’s Director of Public Safety, Matthew Koehn, "Our focus now is closing out this year’s event safely and strongly for Berkley’s families."

The city has not decided on next year's event at this time.