Cranston committee opens review of feast-week arrests, with liquor and entertainment hours in the crosshairs
The Cranston City Council's Safety Services and Licenses Committee spent roughly an hour Monday evening on the 20 arrests made in the Knightsville area during this year's St. Mary's Feast, and the discussion pointed toward one concrete lever the council controls: the hours attached to liquor and outdoor entertainment licenses, which come up for renewal in December.
No vote was taken on the feast. The item appeared under council communications and public comment, not as an ordinance or a license decision. But two Cranston Police Department commanders, the mayor's chief of staff, and a series of feast society members and neighbors all told the committee, in different ways, that the trouble arrived late at night and largely after the feast itself had shut down.
The committee chair opened the discussion by explaining how the item got on the agenda: a colleague on the council asked her to docket it after news coverage of the arrests, and she agreed. She said the intent was not to curtail the feast but to establish publicly that those arrested were not the people who run it.
Local sponsorAffordable photography lessons in Newport, Jamestown, or your town.E.L. Photo RIPolice: the incidents cluster after 10:30 p.m.
A police major told the committee he would not discuss specifics because 20 criminal cases remain open. He did offer a pattern.
"You will notice that most of these incidents — a key factor that we have noticed — is that all of these incidents occur later in the evening," he said, describing calls at 10:30, 11:30, a quarter to midnight and 12:30. He said 98 percent of those arrested were from outside Cranston and declined to blame any single venue.
His proposed remedy was timing. The fireworks began at 10 p.m. and ended around 10:20, he said, and in prior years there had been few incidents after the fireworks. Rolling the display earlier — "as soon as it got dark" — would also answer neighbors who complained about a 10 p.m. start on a work night, he said. He suggested the council consider pulling license end times back from 11 and 11:30 p.m. to 10 or 10:30 p.m.
Staffing figures came out in the same exchange. The major said 15 officers worked Friday night and 19 worked Sunday night, with the full patrol unit on the road brought in to supplement traffic control. Saturday was rained out. He said the department cannot always fill every detail requested. Asked whether outside agencies were needed, he said State Police and Providence police were used in the two prior years but not this year.
A second major said the majority of arrests came Sunday evening, the night of the fireworks, and that residents had asked him directly why the display started so late. Pushing it earlier, he said, would likely disperse the crowd sooner.
An apology, and a New Bedford model
The council member who requested the agenda item opened with prepared remarks that were, in substantial part, an apology for how the issue had been raised.
"I want to be very clear, though: at no point was my intention to end the feast, interfere with the Feast Society's leadership, or overstep my role," he said. He added that his "delivery could have been better" and that he regretted the conversation becoming "more divisive than productive."
He said he had met with the mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts, whose city hosts a large Portuguese festival, and described several measures used there: controlled entry points, strategic fencing, and identification wristbands for guests 21 and older after a set hour. He said New Bedford required restaurants and bars that advertised themselves as part of the festival to abide by festival rules, and that the sponsoring society had a say in the entertainment those venues booked.
Asked by another committee member whether New Bedford had shared a written plan, he said the conversation was informal but that the New Bedford mayor was open to sharing the full document. A committee member suggested obtaining it and reviewing it with police and feast organizers.
He also cautioned against treating online reaction as fact. "Social media can be a valuable tool for communicating with residents, but we all know it can also amplify misunderstandings and emotion," he said.
The administration: the problem is around the feast, not in it
The mayor's chief of staff, appearing both for the administration and as a 36-year member of the feast organization, drew the sharpest line of the night.
He said the feast grounds have "basically completely open perimeters," unlike other local feasts with a single point of entry and exit, which complicates policing. But he argued the arrests did not happen there.
"It is the St. Mary's Feast we're talking about, but the incidences, for the most part, and particularly this year, didn't happen at the St. Mary's Feast," he said. He said the feast closed at 10 p.m. that Sunday and that the larger incidents followed, off the grounds. He said last year's shooting was also not on feast grounds and not during the feast.
He told the committee the administration would urge the council to tighten license hours when renewals come up in the fall, and he framed it as a risk question: officers "are going to get hurt someday and this body is going to regret it."
He also said the feast organization voluntarily shuts down alcohol service at 10 p.m., earlier than its license allows. He described a post-feast review meeting involving the mayor, administration staff and police command — not the feast organization — and said follow-up sessions with organizers and safety services council members were expected.
The committee chair raised a legal constraint that recurred through the night. She said the city cannot license the feast organization to serve alcohol while denying nearby restaurants the same, and she twice invoked the prospect of an ACLU challenge. "We're going to have to look at that going forward," she said, adding she would ask the council attorney to weigh in when applications arrive.
Feast members push back on the framing
Several longtime members of the feast organization spoke during public comment, most of them describing the week as a religious observance first.
One former officer of the organization and its current chaplain, a member since 1981, walked the committee through the schedule: a three-day period of prayer, an open-air Mass on the church steps Friday, a candlelight procession, a patronal Mass and procession Sunday, a marching band through the streets of Knightsville, and fireworks to close. He said the observance dates back 121 years to ancestors from a village in Italy. He said the people arrested came from outside the city, and drew a comparison to fights that have drawn police to a state beach and a ferry.
A former mayor now serving on the council, and a member of the organization since 1979, delivered a point-by-point rebuttal. He said the incidents did not occur at the bandstand, at the fireworks, at the amusement rides, at the vendor site on Phenix Avenue, during the parade and procession, at the society's building, or at the music sites. He said the group plans the event with the police department, does not set its own detail levels, and pays for them. He put the cost of the feast at roughly $100,000 and said the organization asks the city for nothing toward it.
The treasurer of the feast organization, Bob Strom, who is also the city's finance director, told the committee that membership has fallen from roughly 600 people at its peak to between 160 and 180, leaving the group dependent on feast revenue. He said police and fire details will cost the organization about $20,000 this year, and confirmed under questioning that the organization pays for the fireworks.
The president of the St. Mary's Feast Society Ladies' Auxiliary said the fireworks have always been set for 10 p.m., timed to the band's arrival at a neighborhood field, though she said moving them earlier could be discussed. She said the women's membership has fallen from about 200 to about 100.
She also volunteered a criticism of a neighboring establishment. "Their music was way too loud," she said, describing buildings shaking and other performers drowned out. She said one entertainer booked nearby on Sunday night "was not appropriate for a feast and that's what drew in a lot of the bad element," and asked that entertainment type, as well as hours, be considered at licensing time. She said she supports fencing the grounds.
A council member who is also a feast member said the organization's own band had to stop playing because it could not be heard over music down the street, and said vulgar language carried as far as the feast.
Neighbors on parking, permits and a main road
One resident who identified himself as a feast member speaking for himself, not the organization, delivered the most pointed criticism of the council itself.
He said parking restrictions have pushed feast attendees farther from the grounds and into surrounding streets, and that fights have followed them there. He questioned why the council issues outdoor entertainment and outdoor drinking permits to businesses on a main arterial where the street is not closed, describing tables extending to the curb. He argued that closing that stretch would contain the feast the way it was contained historically, when the event ran along Phenix Avenue and back to the carnival on one continuous ground.
He said the fireworks have been at 10 p.m. for 40 years. He said the police detail alone costs the organization close to $20,000 a year and called it money well spent. "This whole problem is this council right here," he said. "And you keep giving permits to these businesses."
A committee member added a separate coordination complaint from constituent emails: businesses that sell neither food nor alcohol, including a tattoo shop, had trouble getting customers through the event footprint and into parking.
The chair said she received 17 emails from area residents after the meeting was posted, citing fireworks timing, late-night parking, and people using front lawns as bathrooms.
What happens next
Nothing binding was decided. The council president said the council followed administration and police recommendations on outdoor entertainment hours last year and signaled it would again. "You will not get push back here," he said.
The committee chair said liquor and entertainment license renewals for the area typically reach her committee in December, and she invited residents to contact her before then. She also suggested the feast organization hold off signing vendor contracts, such as for the amusement rides, until hours are settled, so no one is locked into a schedule the licenses will not support. She raised the possibility that the carnival operator provide its own security.
The current president of the feast organization told the committee he would make himself available for planning meetings with police and the council throughout the year.
This account is drawn from the Cranston Audit, Claims, Safety Services & Licenses Committees and Finance Committee's published meeting recording of its August 3, 2026, meetings. Portions of the audio are unclear, and some speakers could not be independently identified. Residents with comments on license hours can contact the Safety Services Committee through the contact information listed on council agendas, posted at the city's online calendar.