The craziness surrounding Pokémon Go has died down but that doesn’t mean the crowds have stopped showing up at gyms or nests looking for their next big find. The South King County city of Des Moines has certainly noticed as players still flock to the city’s marina and beach park, which are loaded with Pokéstops, gyms, and Pokémon creatures themselves.
While the game has been a positive for some local Western Washington businesses, others have found it to be a nuisance, bringing tons of people to a location where they overwhelm everything else without adding value.
Apparently many folks in Des Moines feel like its more of the latter so the City Council voted unanimously to request to “opt out” of Pokémon Go in all public spaces in Des Moines.
The problem is that Niantic, the company behind the game, doesn’t seem to be listening.
“We’ve not had a response one way or another. There’s a process where you use their website and you request to opt out. The City Attorney’s Office fulfilled that request, but we’ve not had a formal response,” said Michael Matthias, interim city manager.
And so, Des Moines will just have to deal with having large groups of mostly-young people hanging out in it’s public spaces for the foreseeable future. Shame, that.