Sam Gross | Reno Gazette-Journal

GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS

Michael Loccisano, Getty Images file

This story has been updated to include additional information from the South Lake Tahoe Police Department.

Correction: The article originally stated whippits use nitrogen, they use nitrous oxide.

Update, 1:20 p.m.

The band Phish appears to be acknoledging the South Lake Tahoe Police Department's request to urge its fans to clean up after themselves and respect the cities hosting tour stops.

A little over four hours after South Lake Tahoe Police called out the band on Twitter, Phish reminded its fans in a pair of tweets that "these folks are welcoming us into their community and putting up with the inconvenience that this can cause," though the tweets do not directly reference South Lake Tahoe.

Original story:

Fans of the band Phish apparently weren't the best stewards of South Lake Tahoe during a concert Tuesday night, and the police aren't happy about it.

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department directly called out Phish in a tweet this morning, saying that "the city will be working hard to cleanup the aftermath" of the concert.

The tweet is accompanied by four photos which show piles of trash leaning against trees and debris including empty beer cases and food wrappers strewn across streets.

{{props.notification}} {{props.tag}} {{props.expression}} {{props.linkSubscribe.text}} {{#modules.acquisition.inline}}{{/modules.acquisition.inline}} ... Our reporting. Your stories. Get unlimited digital access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

"It was quite a mess yesterday and it was unmanageable," Lt. Sannon Laney of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department told the Reno Gazette Journal. "We cited what we could, but when you get inundated with that many people there's not much we can do."

Phish played the first of two back-to-back concerts Tuesday evening at the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harvey's and another is scheduled for tonight.

The outdoor venue at Harvey's is just across the Nevada state line, but Laney said the are trashed is a popular pre-concert hangout abutting the venue in California, an area that falls under their jurisdiction.

Laney said the area — roughly on the corner of Stateline and Cedar avenues about four blocks from the beach — is often crowded before a concert, but it's never been trashed quite like last night.

"We have concerts all summer there, but none of them have caused as big of a trash problem for us," Laney said.

He added that last night's problems seemed rooted in a large troupe of traveling vendors who follow Phish from venue to venue.

Those vendors set up shop in the area Tuesday night and peddled items ranging from memorabilia to alcohol to more nefarious things, like a type of drug known as "whippits".

Whippits are small nitrous oxide containers intended for home or commercial use in whipped cream charging bottles, but when inhaled create a high.

Laney said the scraps of balloons littering the streets in many of the photos included in the tweet were once filled with nitrous oxide and consumed as a form of whippit. He added that some of the vendors in the area were selling them.

Tuesday night's problems has prompted police to take additional measures ahead of tonight's concert, including constructing additional barriers and calling in more officers to man the area.