The Denver Zoo closed its front gate four hours early on Saturday after online reports of a planned City Park “takeover.” 

As of mid-evening, however, the park remained quiet and there were no reports of the teen fights that caused problems in Northfield Mall last weekend.

The closure, a rarity for the zoo on a Saturday in June, was done as a precautionary measure for the safety of guests, staff and animals, said spokesperson Jake Kubie.

Denver Zoo to close early over 'City Park Takeover' concerns

“The Denver Police Department reached out to us a couple days ago to make us aware of this event that’s being referred to as the City Park takeover,” Kubie said over the phone Friday afternoon. “It sounds like it involves maybe the same individuals who’ve organized other gatherings that have involved juveniles taking part in disruption to local businesses, vandalism and fighting.”

Last Sunday, nearly 300 teens swarmed the Northfield Mall in a coordinated event, with some fighting in and outside of stores and causing other disturbances, according to 9News. While there was no property damage and no arrests were made, the incident was significant enough for the zoo to amend its hours to another planned takeover at City Park Saturday afternoon.

As the zoo closed its front entrance and attendees headed for the exits at around noon on Saturday, people could be overheard talking about the event that was planned to take place.

“I guess its better to be safe than sorry,” one woman said after hearing the reason for the early closure from a zoo employee.

Brandon Healey and his son had travelled from Utah for the Metallica concerts at Mile High Stadium over the weekend, and hoped to spend an afternoon at the zoo amidst their visit to Denver. They were one of several groups of people who were turned away at the zoo’s entrance, not realizing it had closed early for the day.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s closing, that kind of screws around our plans a little bit,” Healey said, adding that they were looking at instead going to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which had not adjusted its hours for the day.

“I don’t want to be skittish about being here, but I want to make sure we’re safe,” Healey added.

The Denver Police Department declined to specify exactly how it planned to mitigate the impacts of the takeover in an email Friday, a practice it noted was standard for any sort of demonstration, but did confirm that it was aware of multiple upcoming takeover events in the Denver area, including the one at City Park on Saturday.

The takeover is one of at least four that have been rumored to be  planned over the next few weeks, with others taking place at Elitch Gardens on July 10, Lakeside Amusement Park on July 11, and Town Center at Aurora on July 12, according to 9News.

For more on this story and others, please visit The Denver Gazette’s news partner 9News.