The New Jersey shore town of Wildwood closed its popular boardwalk for a few hours early Sunday after hordes of “unruly, undisciplined” teens descended on the walkway, local officials said.

Police shut the boardwalk to the public just past midnight after receiving an “irrepressible number” of complaints about an “extremely large number of young adults & juveniles” visiting the site for Memorial Day weekend, according to a statement from authorities.


City officials did not cite a specific incident that led them to shut down the boardwalk, but claimed that cops were addressing “civil unrest.” Conditions “began to deteriorate despite the presence and efforts of local police officers and multiple mutual aid law enforcement agencies,” the statement adds.

Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. said the city had declared a “state of emergency” — which allows it to send an abnormally large police presence to the area — and blamed the situation on “unruly” teens.

“Wildwood will not tolerate unruly, undisciplined, unparented children nor will we stand by while the laws of the state tie the hands of the police,” Troiano Jr said in a news release.

“We wholeheartedly support the City of Wildwood Police Department in protecting this community from these nuisance crowds on our boardwalk and in the city,” the mayor added.

The boardwalk in Wildwood reopened Monday
Local officials Monday afternoon released an explanation for their decision to declare a “state of emergency.” City of Wildwood

Local cops were so busy responding to the “unrest” on the boardwalk that “we were unable to respond to certain calls for service within the city for a period of time,” Wildwood city officials said in the statement.

Police reopened the boardwalk around 5:30 a.m., removing police tape that had been set up at the walkway’s entrances, according to a report from NBC10 Philadelphia.

A rainstorm that erupted overnight also helped disperse whatever crowds remained, video from the scene shows.


Local authorities said they would be giving “no further statements or interviews” explaining why they declared the state of emergency “in honor of the solemness” of the Memorial Day holiday.

The boardwalk shutdown comes a day after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed on the boardwalk in nearby Ocean City Saturday night, spurring panicked crowds of beachgoers to flee the area.