Gun Violence Threat Now Added To Pop-Up Party Risks This Weekend

LONG BRANCH, NJ — Invitations to mass pop-up parties this weekend in Long Branch and Point Pleasant Beach are still circulating on social media — and now the potential risk of gun violence has been added to the mix.

A photo on social media this week appears to show a young man holding a gun by his waistband, with the caption: "I will be strap June 18th/19th at the beach. Play you gonna lay," followed by two kissing face emojis.

What he's referring to are two rumored pop-up parties planned for this weekend, one on June 18 in Point Pleasant Beach, and another June 19 in Long Branch. Invitations to both parties are still circulating on Instagram and TikTok, despite the fact that the city of Long Branch and the borough of Pt. Pleasant Beach each filed their own lawsuits against six of the online party promoters last week.

Police in both beach towns said they are bracing for mass crowds.

These party invitations tell the public to "BYOL bring your own liquor; BWOW, bring your own weed." They also advertise public boxing matches and twerking dance contests with prize money.

Additionally, Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra said that during a June 4 conference call with New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin — a call organized to discuss how towns should deal with the parties — Platkin never even took questions from the dozens of Shore mayors on the call.

"It was a call on June 4," said Kanitra. "Probably 20 mayors spoke. The chief of police of Ocean City was particularly upset; Colleen Lambert, mayor of Beach Haven, spoke after me and was equally upset ... The AG opened up the call with something to the effect of, 'Be very careful about the rhetoric you’re using when talking about these parties.' Or something very similar to that wording. The AG said it unsolicited in his first part of the call before they even opened it up to questions."

"And then he logged off without even listening to anything we had to say and didn’t respond directly to any of the mayors," said Kanitra. "He left his staff to do that."

Kanitra said he wasn't sure what type of "rhetoric" Platkin was referring to. He also said the conference call was "a complete waste of time."

A spokesman for the Attorney General did not respond to Patch when asked about that call, and why the AG did not field questions from the mayors of Jersey Shore towns.

Kanitra is a Republican and Platkin is a Democrat appointed by Murphy.

Many Republican elected officials up and down the Shore say the mass pop-up parties are specifically happening because of police reforms made under Murphy.

"The state has made it so you basically have to murder someone in broad daylight to even go to county jail or be put on bond anymore," said Kanitra in this June 6 Facebook video. "They've screwed up our marijuana and liquor laws so that young kids feel like they can just walk down the street ripping shots and taking hits without any worries."

He is referring to two things: 1. Bail reform, passed in New Jersey under Gov. Chris Christie in 2017: Presently in New Jersey, only those charged with the most serious of crimes are held in jail; most of those arrested are released immediately without bail, or within a day of being arrested.

The second thing he's referring to is Gov. Murphy's marijuana policy, which he legalized last year, and prohibits police officers from notifying parents if their teenager (under 21) is found with booze or weed for the first time. For a first violation, an officer can only give a written warning to the teen. A police officer can only notify parents if police found an underage teen with booze/pot a second time.

Long Branch Public Safety Director Domingos Saldida seems to agree with Kanitra.

"If you catch a minor with alcohol, you can't even take them to their parents," Saldida previously told Patch. "I don't think that's right. It's making life very difficult."

Murphy's office did not respond. However, police officers can interact with juveniles when they are suspected of engaging in delinquent activity, including public intoxication, smoking where prohibited and disorderly conduct.

"I am making this video for any sane people across the country to know what's happening here in New Jersey as a result of pandering political decision that has stopped any kind accountability for idiots like this," continued Kanitra in his Facebook video. "It's not going to be long until we're like San Francisco ... I have had three different Democratic Shore town mayors already tell me that they're just as frustrated as I am with the state's inability to stop these parties from ever occurring in the first place."

In that video, Kanitra repeatedly calls the party organizers "idiots," "dopes" and "losers on Facebook." Just this week, Pt. Pleasant Beach sued two of the social media accounts circulating the June 18 party, Wavell Thompson (@percc30dick), an East Orange resident, and Semya Gill (@semyaimani), who lives in Vauxhall. The suit asks them to call off the events and not organize future events, calling the parties "a public nuisance." Point Pleasant Beach Sues 2 Organizers Seeking To Halt Pop-Up Parties

Kanitra emphasized that even if the parties and mass crowds don't show up this weekend, Point Pleasant Beach, Long Branch and other Shore towns still have to bring in the extra law enforcement agencies and pay police officers overtime to prepare.

Long Branch's lawsuit, filed last week, demands the six party promoters to reimburse the city $25,000 for overtime and "extraordinary expense" of having to bring in so many outside law enforcement agencies for the pop-up party there on May 21. That party attracted 5,000 people and there were 16 arrests.

Related: Long Branch Sues 6 New Jersey Men For Promoting Mass Pop-Up Parties (June 9)