ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando is gearing up for a busy weekend after a mass shooting prompted city leaders to make changes to curb violence.
The shooting, amid thousands of people during Halloween celebrations, left two people dead and nine others injured. The city declared a state of emergency that ended Thursday evening.
“When you’ve got bars and alcohol, you start to have a problem and when you have more people, it just happens,” Devo Heller said.
Heller is the president of the Condominium Association of The Solaire at the Plaza. He said he was not surprised to see a shooting downtown and that he is in favor of efforts by the city to combat violence.
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“Everybody living downtown is always concerned about safety,” he said. “On the other hand, a lot of us move downtown to be around a nightlife, be around people of all ages. So, for me, it’s ‘look out for your own personal safety,’ and support the city and what it wants to do to make people more safe.”
Starting next week, Orange Avenue and side streets will open to cars at night, and barricades to keep pedestrians closer to sidewalks will be put up. Heller said the open lanes will also help residents downtown access their homes better.
“You can’t always find a traffic correct way to come into the parking garage, because if they closed the two one-way streets that lead into this block, then how do they get in?” Heller said.
Those changes begin next week, which means those out this weekend, for an Orlando Magic Game, an Orlando City Soccer game, the Justin Timberlake concert, or the Electric Daisy Festival, will not see those restrictions.
“Anywhere you are, anything can happen,” Xavier Stevenson said.
Stevenson lives near Camping World Stadium, where the Electric Daisy Festival is happening this weekend, and said he is not concerned about safety despite there being thousands of festival goers in his neighborhood.
“That’s not every day, what happened downtown,” he said. “It’s not every day. It’s not every event.”
Both men are planning to continue enjoying their time in Orlando.
“I am going to the symphony on Saturday night without fail and looking forward to it,” Heller said.
The changes in Downtown will begin Friday, Nov. 15. The goal is to have all lanes on Orange Avenue open to vehicles, but there is no timeline for when that might happen.
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