City of Cleveland Cancels Popular Browns Tailgate

When the Cleveland Browns return home to Huntington Bank Field next weekend to take on the Cincinnati Bengals the pregame festivities in Downtown Cleveland will look different. The pregame Browns tailgate on West Sixth Street has been canceled for the rest of the season, says Gus Angelone, better known as Pumpkinhead. 

Angelone was in his 20th season operating this tailgate and for the first time has been told by the city that he’s no longer allowed to host the event for Browns home games. 

“It's been widely publicized, the city takeovers,” Angelone told Cleveland Magazine via phone on Wednesday evening. “There are precautions that we have taken this year to ensure the safety of the tailgates, with hiring off-duty cops, paying their overtime and we've always had our own security. We follow all the permits, rules and regulations, but we even started to charge admission this year to keep the riff-raff out of the tailgates. And we've never, in 14 years, have had any issues.”

There have been issues in Cleveland with well-publicized ‘city takeovers’ in recent weeks, including in Downtown’s Warehouse District, but Angelone says none of that should be connected to the tailgate that he hosts. 

“We hosted the home opener, and then we hosted the second game of the second home game of the season. The home opener went to four o'clock. We had the street cleared, cleaned and reopened by five o'clock; the city still wasn't happy. They still had trouble with the patrons outside a particular bar that doesn't participate in the tailgates,” Angelone says. “They're trying to say that we are attracting a bad environment.”

The city sees things in a different light. 

“The City has monitored the tailgate throughout the season and has become aware of escalating behavior the event draws,” said city spokesperson Tyler Sinclair in a written statement.  “We had previous conversations with the organizers to express concerns about both the size of the crowd that attends their tailgate as well as the City resources and personnel needed to manage a crowd condensed in a space that is in direct proximity to multiple bars.  Unfortunately, the lawless behavior continued and the decision was made to not issue permits for the tailgate going forward this year.  The City has an obligation to prioritize public safety above everything else.  We have seen extraordinary decreases in homicides and overall violent crime and want to ensure that we're taking deliberate actions to make certain those positive trends continue.”

The city and Angelone both said that the tailgates resuming next year is possible, however.

“I don't know why the city is saying that we're tracking in a bad crowd. We've had the same crowd for 14 years,” Angelone says. “We welcome everybody, every race, every gender, every everyone, kids, families, everyone. So it's very just disheartening to be made the focal point of the actions of these street takeover participants, saying it's our fault.”

Angelone says that he explored alternatives to hosting the tailgate on West Sixth Street, but nothing could be worked out as of this time. 

“We were looking at relocating to the Flats. We were looking to relocate to another private lot. It really seems like it's a vendetta against tailgating, and really it's not even tailgating. This has become a business for me, right? It helps small businesses in the area, we have street vendors and food trucks, and it's really going to hurt a lot of small businesses.”

Angelone also launched a “Save Our Tailgate” campaign on social media Thursday morning. 

“I’m devastated. I'm crushed. This is a passion of mine.”

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