A 1.5km stretch of Park Street had at least four police teams armed with breathalysers to check drink driving cases on New Year’s Eve.
The footfall at the city’s party street started picking up around 7.45pm. Popular restaurants and pubs like Olypub, Mocambo, Peter Cat as well as the Flurys Tearoom had long queues.
Unlike Christmas Eve, the police did not shut down the movement of vehicles on Park Street till 8.30pm.
But senior officers of Kolkata police said that they had kept arrangements to stop the entry of vehicles if people started to descend in numbers to Park Street on Saturday night.
Akash Magharia, deputy commissioner, south, Kolkata police said they were keeping all options open to keep Park Street “moving on New Year’s Eve”.
“We have provisions to turn this into a walking street like Christmas. But over the years we have seen that the crowd count is not that much on New Year’s Eve as on Christmas,” said Magharia.
On Saturday evening, the stretch outside Allen Park had a sea of heads.
“We have had a very good lunch crowd today and diners too were starting to queue up from 7pm onwards,” said Nitin Kothari, owner of Mocambo, Peter Cat and Peter Hu.
Many visitors picked up accessories like red caps and headbands as well as quirky eyeglasses from hawkers before walking through Park Street.
Golf Green resident Pratiksha Bhattacharya, who had gone to Park Street with her group of friends, said she wanted to see the lights and have a light dinner before hitting a nightclub.
“We miss dinner every year so this year we decided to have dinner first and party later,” said Bhattacharya, a post-graduate student.
Sushil Dutta, who had come from Salkia in Howrah, hoisted his six-year-old son on his shoulders so that he could have a better look at the lights. “I decided to bring him here as it is less crowded as compared to Christmas.”
Kolkata police said as many as 3,000 cops would be deployed in and around Park Street.