Seattle parks, beaches will be closed this weekend

SEATTLE — Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and other city officials announced Thursday that major city parks and beaches will be closed over the weekend.

Durkan said this will be a temporary closure of the parks and the city will monitor whether it needs to continue that or continue to close additional parks.

Seattle Parks Superintendent Jesus Aguirre said Alki Beach Park, Cal Anderson Park, Carkeek Park, Discovery Park, Gas Works Park, Green Lake Park, Golden Gardens Parks, Kubota Garden, Lincoln Park, Magnuson Park, Seward Park, Volunteer Park, West Seattle Stadium and Woodland Park will be closed starting Friday evening.

Parks will re-open Monday at 4:30 a.m.

Seattle Parks and Recreation along with Seattle police will be at the listed locations.

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said the Parks department will deploy resources to serve as eyes and ears on the ground and will ask for people to comply. They then will ask them to please leave the park. If they’re not able to leave they will call officers to respond.

"We know that we can’t police our way out of a pandemic,” Best said.

Seattle is joining major cities across the country, like Austin and Los Angeles, in closing parks for the weekend.

The weekend closure of the parks is part of a continued effort to get people to practice social distancing -- keeping themselves at least 6 feet from one another.

© 2020 Cox Media Group