CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NBA All-Star Weekend is days away from returning to Charlotte for the first time in 28 years.
From massive crowds to unlicensed venues, police are preparing security for legal parties and cracking down on illegal ones.
The city already knows about more than 150 parties this weekend across the area.
The fear is that there could be dozens more not even on their radar.
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Security is getting ready for parties at the Charlotte Music Factory, Epicentre and other restaurant and clubs in Charlotte.
“As you can tell right now, we're a restaurant, but starting Friday, we're going to turn into a club,” restaurant manager Fredi Benitez said.
Benitez told Channel 9 that Charlotte fire officials stopped by his business to assist.
“They gave us guidance about our safety, how to handle a big crowd,” Benitez said.
To get ahead of the game, officials are combing social media for fliers, adding each advertised party to their list of spots to check on.
“That's like continuously growing each day, that we're checking social media,” fire inspector Kevin Miller said.
Miller said most places follow the rules, but the spontaneous events are tough to track.
“It's a lot of pop-up places, a lot of places popping up, empty warehouses, vacant buildings in our system that are advertising parties,” Miller said. “Those are the ones that's on our radar.”
From the Music Factory to the Epicentre, inspectors will work overtime this weekend.
“We have 40 inspectors, and we'll have all 40 of them available just to be moving around the entire weekend,” Miller said.
Benitez said his business, La Revolucion, will host a half-dozen private parties.
“They have to go by our rules,” Benitez said.
The responsibility falls on his staff to keep partiers in line.
“They don't bring no weapons. They don't bring illegal drugs,” Benitez said. “As soon as we see that, we gotta cancel that party immediately."
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