STURGIS, S.D. – In their Saturday report, the city of Sturgis says they continue to experience very large crowds for the 81st Annual Motorcycle Rally.
As of Saturday morning, the City had issued 686 temporary vending licenses. This number compares to 601 in 2020. Trash collections are also up 6% from last year.
Sturgis Police also issued their first rally report of the year.
Chief Geody VanDewater says their biggest problem, interestingly enough, is open container violations.
The city allowed open container this year, but only in a designated area in the downtown corridor and alcohol must be in a special event cup. Anything outside of that is a violation, and VanDewater says there have been 207 violations so far. Two of those resulted in arrests.
Another annual problem for law enforcement is parking, and so far, VanDewater says there have been 13 illegal parking calls. That is up slightly over last year.
As for drugs, Sturgis Police have reported 4 misdemeanor drug possession calls and three felony drug possession arrests.
There have been 7 non-injury accidents and six domestic disturbance calls.
So far, police in Sturgis have responded to 376 calls for service with 19 non-traffic arrests and 26 traffic arrests.
The latest stats reflect a time period between 6:00 a.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Saturday.
With Saturday being the first full day of the rally, Saturday’s numbers are expected to increase and will be released tomorrow (Sunday).
