The Zoo’s “Free” Problem


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The Memphis Zoo got a hard lesson last week in the cost of “free day.”

So many people showed up that the zoo and Overton Park had to be closed for a while. There were traffic jams, fights, and gunshots.

The zoo administration has come up with some possible remedies including no free days during March (and spring break for city schools) and a requirement that kids up to 16 years old have an adult chaperon. But this will put a burden on the zoo staff (“let me see your IDs, all five of you, and which one is the chaperon, and who came with who?”) and it ignores the problem of zoo overcrowding and neighborhood encroachment the other 11 months of the year.

There’s another idea that might work. Make free day dollar day.

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