Back in September, we gave you a blow-by-blow account of a contentious, ridiculous, boring, and ultimately “gloriously absurd” meeting between Milwaukee County officials and Pokemon Go players. The meeting was meant to address the many issues Lake Park has faced since becoming one of the most popular and concentrated Pokemon Go destinations in the country: increased litter, damaged grounds, lack of bathrooms, parking problems, concerned neighbors, etc. Instead, it quickly devolved into a lot of shouting and crying adults, and at least one sobbing kid in a top hat.
One of the topics of the meeting was the existence of a letter sent from Milwaukee County Parks to Pokemon Go developer Niantic, Inc., more or less asking for the removal of the Lake Park PokeStops. Now, months later, the parks system seems to be getting its wish: According to multiple Reddit and Facebook posts, a number of PokeStops have vanished from Lake Park in the last 24 hours, leading many to wonder who’s behind the PokePurge.
“I guess Niantic decided to back off,” says one Reddit user. “Today the company removed several (probably about half) of the clustered Poke Stops that made Lake Park such a hotspot for the game.” “Fuck the rich people. It’s a public park that we have every right to be in that our taxes pay for,” says another Facebook user, nicely summing up the tone this issue has assumed.
Concerned players have also noted that many of the deleted stops were the ones closest to Lake Drive houses, leading to more “Guess the wealthy get what they want!” discussion. Emails asking for more information from Milwaukee County and Niantic were not returned Thursday morning. In other news, winter is just around the corner.