Starkville Crowding

Starkville has been experiencing huge crowds and it has many citizens worried about a mass spread of coronavirus.

Roll vo in monitor in college towns across the south, the students have returned.

A picture of a large crowd gathered in starkville has gone viral.

An executive order from the governor prohibits outdoor gatherings of more than 20 people.

It's an issue that's happened outside city limits too.

Our stephanie poole speaks with law enforcement officers about what they're doing to tackle the issue.

She joins us in the studio with more.

Joey, this is a problem officers are not taking lightly.

éé their departments are monitoring gatherings to keep safety rules enforced, even if that means issuing citations.

éé this is just one post of an image gone viral of starkville's cotton district....it's similar to this picture in tuscaloosa just the other day.

The large overflow is leaving restaurant owners, like tyler klass, with more questions that answers.

"at some point, someone has to come and help us enforce this because there's only so many of us.

During the summer it was easy, but now there's an extra 20-thousand people here and without the help of the city it's just going to get worse."

Butt sots "you come out here on a saturday and it's jam-packed, not a-lot of concern.

Definitely just needs to be regulated better because we have six employees here and we only have two that work here at night."

Starkville police chief mark ballard says this incident rose very quickly.

But, after a few minutes, officers dispersed the but, after a few minutes, officers dispersed the over-crowded bar.

" that was one business of several that chose to violate or not enforce the mask enforcement.

For that night, we had a detail that was actually out doing other compliance checks.

Once that picture was made aware to the police department we went back over took enforcement action on that business."

Ballard says since july, over 70 citations have been issued under the enforcement program.

" we can't enforce our way out of this.

It has to be an individual responsibility.

It's got to be inherently taken up by the business owners and the managers.if you want to service and the businesses are holding the line there that's where you're going to get the best compliance possible."

Oktibbeha county sheriff steve gladney says deputies had reports of sheriff steve gladney says deputies had reports of gatherings outside city limits too.

" when we get a call and then we get there and there's 200 or 300 people there.

It's small with a small number of deputies but we were able to handle it over the weekend and we broke up a-lot of large parties all over the county."

Gladney and ballard are urging citizens to remember public heath regulations.

" wear the mask, be smart.

We certainly don't want this thing to start going back up to large numbers."

Roll vo in monitor starkville mayor lynn spruill says quote " we take this very seriously and are working through our code enforcement and police to educate and inform those who have now gotten back from the spring and summer sabbatical to our community.éé i expect it to be an ongoing process that will take continued efforts to address" end quote.