In response to concerns from downtown neighborhoods and businesses to the possibility of Halloween street party madness, Denver police are temporarily closing two blocks of LoDo, which have been a hot spot for violence.

Vehicle traffic will be non-existent on Market Street between 19^th and 20^th Streets and Larimer Street between 20^th and 21^st Streets from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights, the police said.

The police are also temporarily bagging parking meters during that time to keep the streets open. The police said opening up lines of sight will make it easier for officers to see “potentially dangerous or illegal activity occurring so that it can be quickly addressed.”

Six bystanders were shot by a Denver officer in July 2022 as an armed suspect who had just been involved in an altercation moved in and out of sight between parked cars. Body-worn camera video showed that the vehicles, combined with loitering after-bar crowds, made it hard to navigate the situation.

On Saturday night, 10 bars, including some in the auto-free zone, are participating in a Zombie Crawl, which includes offering drink specials.

The pilot closure is, in part, a response to meetings with residents and business owners fed up with shootings, robberies and rampant drug use in the area. The grassroots effort to shut down certain streets to traffic began a year ago and escalated after a teenager opened fire on a group of bystanders on Sept. 16, injuring five of them.

The teen, 17-year-old, Keanna Rosenburgh, was angry because she was refused admittance to Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row at 19^th and Market, according to Denver police. Video surveillance showed that she left, returned to the bar and began shooting into of a group people who had gathered on the sidewalk.

After a month on the run, Rosenburgh was apprehended in Barstow, California and is awaiting extradition to Denver. It has not been decided whether she would be tried as an adult, but she is being investigated for eight counts of first-degree attempted murder.

Lissa Druss, a spokesperson for Riot Hospitality Group, which owns Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, said getting rid of vehicles is a good start to keeping pedestrians safe because that’s where people tend to store their weapons.

“If an establishment turns away someone with a weapon, we have witnessed that person drop it off in their car and come back,” Druss said.

Denver Police spokesman Doug Schepman added that people have been known to go to their cars to retrieve their handguns, so keeping cars further away from the bars “can create a little bit more distance.”

Denver police have alerted Lyft and Uber about the closures, and it will be up to customers to make arrangements to arrange for pick-up at the nearest street that’s open for traffic.

This weekend’s street closure is a test to see if the measure would decrease violence. Druss is confident it will do so. Her company has seen it work in Chicago, Scottsdale and Nashville, where shutting down weekend traffic is the norm, she said.

“This is all about pedestrian safety,” she said. “It’s about eliminating pedestrians and vehicles from interacting when it’s late.”