Esteban Parra

The News Journal

"Pokémon Go" uses GPS to link in-game creatures to real world locations.

The game that launched this summer has brought countless players out to hunt for virtual characters.

Some residents in historic New Castle have raised concerns about noise and other issues.

They've been coming by the hundreds day and night to Old New Castle. Smokers, teens, dog walkers, parents pushing strollers – all strolling along brick sidewalks and cobblestone roads, armed with cellphones playing "Pokémon Go."

The hunters, as some liked to be called, use smartphones to search for virtual critters around colonial, Dutch and federal buildings where real 21st-century people live. "Pokémon" players are spotted wandering through Battery Park along the Delaware River at all hours. At night time, a blue hue glows from vehicles, some double- or even triple-parked.

"This just seems to be the best area," said Mike Collura, parked near a wharf fire hydrant late Monday. The Pennsville, New Jersey, man said the location offers a multitude of characters, as well as a spot for families to hang out. "The most stops in one area."

Some New Castle entrepreneurs see opportunities in the virtual hunters and hope to capture their business. But others wish the fad, which exploded in popularity this summer, would end and the historic community return to the good old days of pre-"Pokémon Go." Town officials have not seen any serious problems with crime in the area, but they've increased trash collections and even tinkered twice with the time people are allowed in Battery Park in an attempt to deal with residents' concerns.

The month-old smartphone game, based on the Pokémon franchise of the 1990s, allows players to walk around outside, seeking cartoon characters projected into the real environment via their phone's camera and then catch the pocket creatures as if they were real, earning points. Open spaces are ideal places to catch the digital creations.

Legions of fans have descended on places like the Wilmington Riverfront and University of Delaware campus to catch monsters. In Rehoboth Beach, a motorist helping his wife find characters was cited after crashing into a police cruiser just after midnight last month. A similar incident happened in Baltimore.

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Last month, the Colorado Department of Transportation posted signs reminding to not play the game while driving. In Massachusetts, caretakers of Fort Phoenix raised concerns "Pokémon" players were causing damage to the Revolutionary War-era structure.

In New Castle, the large number of players is creating an uneasy balance of people wanting to share the historic treasure and residents feeling burdened by outsiders walking like zombies at any given time of day and night with noses to phones. The community is recognized as a National Historic Landmark because of the number of buildings dating back to the 1700s.

"At first, we felt bad that we didn't want to share our town with everybody, but that's not what it's like," said James Vincent, who lives in the 200 block of Delaware St. – a few blocks from the city's epicenter of "Pokémon Go." "What it's like is they don't really respect our town, and they are very inconsiderate."

Vincent and others said their community has been inundated with people obliviously walking through town. The increase in motorists, some from surrounding states, have been taking up limited parking spots. Some players stand in front of buildings, blocking sidewalks and business entrances, and several residents complained about empty water bottles, cans and cigarette butts.

There are also complaints of loud people in the streets and in Battery Park, well after is closes at dusk.

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Gene Dempsey, who with his wife operates Caroline's restaurant on Delaware Street, said the game has provided him a few customers. He said they were nice, polite people. But others playing the game have kept him up at night.

Apparently, there is a "Pokémon" critter near the front of his business, which is adjacent to his home. Dempsey said he and others have been awakened by players talking and dogs barking.

"People want to sleep. They don't want to listen to all their nonsense," said Dempsey, who needs to be up by 6 to operate his business. "If five are here and they yell to other ones, then they all come."

Other residents, like Atiya Turner, see the "Pokémon" hunters as a way to make some money. Noticing the increase in people walking in the heat, Turner opened Poké's Snack Stop on her front porch on Fourth Street along with her 15-year-old son. Turner said she sells water ice, chips and water.

"My mind is always thinking business," she said. "So when I saw everyone I thought, 'There are no stores down there.'"

Turner said she makes up to $40 on a good day, adding she's not seen any problems from the players walking through town.

"As far as it being a nuisance to the town, I don't see it," she said.

"Some stop at our restaurants and bars. They get fired up a little bit, and you can hear them until midnight or a little after midnight at least," Vincent said. "It is aggravating. Nobody is really mad at them or anything like that. They just think that they should be more respectful for the town."

All hours of the day, they play

The nearly 1,000 residents of Occoquan, Virginia, a tiny suburb of Washington, D.C., can sympathize with New Castle. The historic waterfront community has been overwhelmed by the virtual hunters, who play in the town day and night.

"It definitely kind of came out of the blue," said Occoquan Mayor Elizabeth A.C. Quist. She first noticed the impact when she drove through the town on a Monday and saw the masses of people on what would normally be a quiet day.

"Now were are experiencing, seven days a week, all hours of the day, up to 400 at a time, walking around our two blocks of our historic business district," she said.

For the most part, the hunters are respectful and polite, she said, adding they've had very few instances of crime related to the game.

"But what we do have is the noise and disruption that comes when even people who are speaking at a reasonable volume at night in large crowds is creating a problem for our residents who live in our business district," she said.

To combat some of the issues, Quist said, they've had to become more creative with police shifts. The town only has one police officer, but they are using three auxiliary officers to fill in some of the vacant shifts, and using grant funding to bring in paid officers and get them through the summer.

"We're just trying to keep an eye on it," she said.

In Delaware, the "Pokémon" craze has become something many police departments have had to deal with. New Castle County police said officers have found players in Glasgow Park after dark, as well as near a pool in the Brennan Estates development after it closed. At least one person has been issued a summons for being in a park after dark, said Cpl. Tracey Duffy, a county police spokeswoman.

The county has posted tips to keep hunters safe and reminders that county parks close at night.

'We embrace the visitors'

New Castle police Chief Jamie C. Rogers said officers have been clearing out Battery Park at dusk, although that's created another problem. After the groups leave, they end up playing in the streets and searched for critters near museums and churches as late as 4 a.m.

"That's when our calls began to increase," Rogers said.

Police, along with a trustee who oversees Battery Park, agreed to leave the park open until 11 p.m. But after community complaints, police last week returned to enforcing that people must be out by dusk.

"That's kind of where we stand now with it," Rogers said. "We didn't change rules. We just began to enforce the rules that were always in place."

The wharf parking area is open until 11 p.m., but police patrol the area to make sure people are following the rules there. City officials said they do not want to discourage people from visiting New Castle. They just want people to follow the rules, they said.

"We embrace the visitors," Rogers said. "We want the visitors to come in. We want to share our city with them. We want to make it safe for everybody."

Christopher Castagno, a Battery Park Committee trustee, welcomes the visitors and said the increase in people can work as a dry run for when tourists seeking national parks arrive. The New Castle Court House Museum is one of seven sites in Delaware recently inducted into the National Park Service, and the U.S. Department of Interior predicts these designations can draw as many as 60,000 visitors, Castagno said.

"I think we are learning to deal with visitors and, by and large, this particular group of visitors, relative to the park, we're not seeing any adverse effects," he said.

Castagno personally performed litter pickup in Battery Park for two weeks and said he did not see an increase in trash. He doesn't discount the issues his fellow residents are having, Castagno said, but he is not seeing it in the park.

"The biggest issue is that they are walking into each other because they are looking at their phones," Castagno said. "I'm glad they are discovering one of Delaware's greatest resources."

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New Castle officials said the increase in visitors has not placed a strain on the city's services, other than to add receptacles in order to collect more trash.

Quist suggests communities try to find opportunities where they can benefit from the out-of-town visitors.

"Walking down the street at night, I hear people say, 'I had no idea all of this was here,'" she said of the hunters. "So while they're searching for their creatures now, they will probably come back and eat and drink by the river and, hopefully, peruse through some of the shops and possibly even come back and live here some day."

Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.

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