Forget New Year's Eve, Thanksgiving Eve Biggest Party Night of Year

A Facebook fan page dedicated to Thanksgiving Eve explains why it's the best day of the year.

"It is the official kickoff to the holiday season" and "the next day is filled with football, eating and sleeping, and it is (all) considered acceptable," fans have posted.

Oh, and there's "NO Dick Clark, false hope of holiday weight loss and the thought of things coming to an end," the Facebook page reads.

Who can argue with that logic?

But for police, it's one of the most dangerous days of the year.

"The night before Turkey Day is know for running neck-and-neck with New Year's Eve as the top partying night of the year," according to www.drunkdriving.com.

Huntley, like hundreds of other police departments around the state and country, will be focusing on making the evening safer and keeping drunk drivers off the road.

Deputy Chief Todd Fulton said the department will have a full shift Wednesday night along with four additional officers dedicated to patrolling the downtown where there will be lots of activity due to the Parkside Pub's Turkey Testicle Festival.

"We will have two officers on foot in downtown…just making sure there's no problems," Fulton said, adding there are typically thousands of people.

Huntley police will have help from the Illinois State Police to help keep things safe around town. The state police will have a unit dedicated to traffic control and enforcement. State troopers will be directing traffic and looking for traffic violations, include drunk driving.

Parkside Pub puts up a tent for the event and hires its own a private security company with about 50 officers who do a good job keeping things in line, Fulton said. The pub works with a taxi company to have cabs available to those people who've been drinking too much and the pub offers shuttle buses that have pick-up/drop-off points throughout the village's neighborhoods.

"They (Parkside Pub) do pretty good encouraging people to find alternate ways to get home," Fulton said.

While the pub's event is the biggest draw, many of the bars around town are busy too, he said.

Last year, the police department reported minor incidents in the village and made a few drunken driving arrests, Fulton said. He hopes to have few incidents this year as well.

"It went pretty smoothly last year and we anticipate it going pretty smoothly this year," he said.

The same tips police have for New Year's Eve are recommended for Thanksgiving Eve: have a designated driver or take a taxi home.

A simple tip from www.drunkdriving to keep in mind: "have one less drink at the bar and save that 5 or 10 bucks for a taxi to get home safely."