By Brian Denitzio
News Editor

A weekend cookout at Tenean Beach intended as a networking opportunity for black families in Boston riled residents and merchants surrounding the beach who say that the Saturday afternoon event clogged their streets and left the beach strewn with trash. Organizers of the Collaborative Cookout say that they are sensitive to neighbors' concerns, but say that the event is a one-day inconvenience for people living around the beach that provides a positive, family-oriented setting for people of color from across the city. They argue that neighbors put up with similar inconveniences for house parties and parades.

"It's not a case where we're not concerned about the neighbors who live adjacent or near the immediate area to the park, but at the same time there's only so much we can do in order to appease them. It's one day out of the year," said Darius McCroey, a co-organizer of the event.

But Tom Leahy, who lives on King Street and was visiting a relative in Port Norfolk on Saturday afternoon said that the event went beyond being simply an inconvenience.

"I couldn't drive through. I saw cars on both sides of the street, and I went down the following day, and the place was basically squalor," said Leahy. "There was trash strewn about, I saw people on the beach, and they looked pretty dismayed."

Leahy questioned whether the state's Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), which issued the permit for the event, should allow it to take place at a venue such as Tenean, which he believes cannot accommodate something on the scale of the Collaborative Cookout.

"I don't know why there weren't enough trash receptacles there and why people were allowed to obstruct traffic," he said. "It's clearly not the venue for such an event if they can't accommodate the vehicles."

Vanessa Gulati, a spokesperson for the DCR, said the Collaborative's permit application estimated that 1,000 people were expected to attend the event. Event organizers told the Reporter that they estimated between 2,000 and 2,500 people attended the event throughout the course of the afternoon.

Event co-organizer Michael Curry said in an e-mail to the Reporter that he is adamant that attendees clean-up after themselves, and typically brings a large number of trash bags.

He and McCroey said in a phone interview that they wonder if underlying complaints about trash and parking was more a signal of discomfort with an event geared towards black families being held in a predominantly white section of Dorchester.

"If I were a non-person of color I would have been excited to walk out of my house and intermingle with folks that I might not have been exposed to on my side of Dorchester. I think that that's something you adjust to living in the city," said Curry.

"I'm always excited when people would come out of their comfort zone and engage in places where they might not feel comfortable," he added.

With regards to the trash left behind on the beach, Curry noted that this year, the group was charged a maintenance fee as part of the application submitted to DCR.

"This year we were charged a maintenance fee by DCR that would pay for cleanup services, whether we cleaned up or not. In addition, on that day of the event, there weren't enough trash barrels spread throughout the area, and those that did exist were not filled with trash bags," wrote Curry.

Curry said in an earlier phone interview that while Tenean Beach is not necessarily the ideal setting for the event, it's location in a somewhat secluded part of the neighborhood might be one reason why the DCR permits the event for the site.