Reading this thread, I’m wondering how cities can actually close a park at night. I mean, I assume most parks are not enclosed. Do they just enforce it by having police drive around and hand out tickets? What if I’m at a friend’s house, want to go on a 7-11 run at midnight and cutting through the park is the fastest way? I can get ticketed just for that? It’s fine to take the long way around as long as I’m on the sidewalk, but the walking path through the park is prohibited?
The do it just through some penalty associated with something like trespassing. Most parks obviously don’t have fences all around them but they may have roads that can be closed or sidewalks that can be marked with signs. I don’t know about where you are from but some cities have real problems with their parks at night. They may attract homeless people, drug dealers, drug users, teenagers out for general mayhem, muggers, rapists, and people looking for a little anonymous male on male release. Most parks aren’t very dangerous at all even at night but the police want an excuse to kick people out at their discretion to prevent a buildup of that sort of activity.
and to protect the municipality from liability in the event that someone gets hurt on their property when they had no business being there.
The city parks around here have road barricades which, I believe, automatically swing into place at the pre-programmed closing time. (I’ve never actually seen them do that, but none of the local city parks seem to have a full-time staff, so I assume it’s automated.)