The Town of Innisfail was asked at Monday's council meeting to consider changing the hours of operation for Centennial Park, from being open 24/7 to closing at night, in order to limit alleged criminal and disruptive activity that takes place in the parking lot when the sun goes down.

Innisfail resident Roger Tewson, who lives across the street from Centennial Park for the past couple of years, wants the town to start restricting access to the park at night to hopefully cut down on mostly vehicle and sound related disturbances.

Chief Administrative Officer for the Town of Innisfail Todd Becker says they will look into these concerns and decide on the appropriate response.

“The direction given from council was to talk to bylaw as well as RCMP on some of the history in the area regarding public complaints, suspicious activity, and also talk to the parks department regarding the opportunity to install gates to create limitations to access to the parking lot.”

Tewson says it's not so much a criminal element, but more people having fun and getting out of hand.

“In the summertime there’s lots of vehicles there making lots of noise, lots of loud music, things like that. I don’t really want to begrudge anybody having a nice, little, quite party over there, but they are fairly loud and lots of suspicious activity at all hours of the day, but mostly at night.”

His says his primary concern is for the safety of kids playing in the area, or the possibility of a vehicle colliding with a building while stunting.

Council will look into possible solutions to this issue by consulting with various community groups, including the RCMP.