ROCHESTER, N.Y. — If you went to the bars or restaurants in the East End entertainment district in Rochester on Saturday night, you may have seen some changes in security. News10NBC has been speaking with patrons, servers, and business owners about how they feel about the changes.

The City of Rochester created what it calls a “special events zone” on parts of East Avenue, Alexander, and Lawrence streets to exclude anyone under 21 from the East End and improve security. RPD officers were checking IDs and checking for weapons before people could enter the zone.

The special events zone will be in place every Saturday from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. until further notice under the city’s Gun Violence State of Emergency. You can read more about the special events zone here.

Lacy Holloway, a bartender at Filger’s East End, is glad to to see measures aiming to increase safety.

“It really depends on where you stand,” Holloway said. “Obviously, having an increased police presence is always going to be a little bit intimidating. But if you’ve been down here any time over the last two years, that’s kind of been the case anyways.”

Holloway said the zone could also make it safer for pedestrians.

“One thing I’m really excited about is that now ridesharing makes a lot more sense because you have people walking across the street and it gets busy on East and Alexander and cars are driving through,” he said. “So, from a safety thing, I know like when I was going out a lot, I almost got hit by a car a couple of times. So like having that knowing like, there’s a rideshare point that I can get in a car and leave is pretty nice.”

But others, like 19-year-old Manny James, are less excited about it.

“I feel as if, if you keep trying to control people, people are not going to like that and they’re going to revolt in some sort of way,” James said. “Even if it’s nothing like too crazy. but you know how you know how it is. it’s like, you know, it’s been like throughout time. people don’t like being told what to do.”

Many businesses in the area are glad to see a change coming to their neighborhood.

“Obviously, we’re a 21-and-over place, as are many of these places,” said Cameron Phelps of Daily Refresher on Alexander Street. “So in terms of patronage, I feel like it’s still within our group, of our demographic that is going to want to come down here and those that are under 21 kind of loitering, milling about and not really patrons in the spots. So, you know, it’s definitely an issue.”

Kerry McCarthy-Szal of Rochester Pedal Tours also weighed in.

“As a business owner, you get concerned with the levels of crime and the reports that you read about this downtown area, McCarthy-Szal said. “I don’t think it’s really as bad as everyone reads, but I think taking positive steps to prevent issues from happening before they happen is an important part of, you know, making things better.”

The zone is in collaboration between RPD, City Hall, and businesses in the area.

“Over the last few months, we’ve had a few different violent incidents that have occurred down in the east end of our district. And so as a response to that, we’ve looked at different ways that we can quell that violence,” said RPD Capt. Greg Bello.

Bello says the goal is to eliminate underage individuals from creating trouble in the area.

“Primarily the issue that’s popped up down there is that there’s a lot of people that have been congregating and loitering outside of the bars, restaurants and nightclubs without actually going in them. They’ve been just going down there and creating problems and creating trouble,” he said.

No large bags or backpacks will be allowed in the blocked-off area. Here’s a map of the zone:

A.I. assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News 10 uses A.I.