Chicago's Friday Morning Swim Club will not be back this year
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago's popular Friday Morning Swim Club has been called off, after organizers were unable to reach an agreement with the Chicago Park District on arrangements for the permits needed for it to continue.
Founders Andrew Glatt and Nicole Novotny announced in an Instagram video Thursday that the Friday Morning Swim Club will not be back at its Montrose Harbor site in 2024. Glatt and Novotny listed multiple reasons why they had decided to discontinue the event, taking issue in particular with the Chicago Park District.
The event founders said the cost for a permit this year would have amounted to $108,000 for the space alone – with another $40,000 needed for permits lifeguards, and more needed for the cost of transportation and maintenance plans and for portable toilets for the one-hour event. Altogether, the cost of the permit would be a minimum of $150,000 to $175,000 for this year, Glatt said in the video.
The club's out-of-pocket costs for staffing, legal fees, coffee for participants to drink, and insurance would total $268,000, he said in the video.
Altogether, the cost to run Friday Morning Swim Club in the summer would be $250,000 to $300,000 for the summer, he said. While Glatt said in the video that there was no concern about raising money through corporate sponsors, he and Novotny do not want the free event to cost such an exorbitant amount to put on.
"It's not going to turn into a money-making machine for anybody," Glatt said in the video.
The founders added in the video that the Park District had shown "general disinterest" in swim club – with all the group's suggestions being met with "unreasonable demands."
"We realized that this was always a square-peg-into-a-round hole situation," Novotny said in the video. "Swim Club did not fit their model, and they were unable and unwilling to think outside the box."
The event also founders took issue with Park District swimming policies – referencing a Block Club Chicago story in which distance swimmers at Promontory Point in Hyde Park were looking for safety improvements due to safety risks from jet skis and boats, and were told swimming at Promontory Point was not allowed to begin with.
Glatt and Novotny also pointed to an article about a 2021 incident in which life rings were installed by volunteers on Pratt Pier in Rogers Park in the wake of the drowning death of 19-year-old Miguel Cisneros in the water off the pier – only for them to be taken down by the Park District on the grounds that they were not authorized safety devices.
The Park District had maintained that bringing life rings to "no swim" zones like Pratt Pier would encourage swimming in dangerous areas, but a state law was later passed to require life rings at all Lake Michigan piers and access points.
The Friday Morning Swim Club also met on a site where accessing the water requires climbing down a ladder along the side of a seawall, rather than a beach with easy water access.
In further addition, Glatt and Novotny said the Park District had told them the club would be safer without the floats it uses. They said the Park District told them the flotation devices are "not approved life-saving devices and a drowning hazard," and told them treading water without the devices while waiting to climb a ladder out of the lake is safer.
Park District officials defended their stance on Friday Morning Swim Club, noting the area where the event has taken place is clearly designated a "no swimming area," and confirming that the group's flotation devices are not permitted at city beaches.
"The water at the Montrose Harbor location is at least 8 feet deep and has limited safety ladders. In addition, flotation devices are deemed unsafe by the U.S. Coast Guard as lifesaving equipment and as such are not permitted at Park District beaches and pools," the district said in a statement.
The Park District also said they offered alternative locations and other rules that would have allowed the Swim Club to get permits for the weekly event "with the appropriate lifeguard protections required for similar large lakefront charity event swims and aquatic athletic events."
"Suggestions to relocate to a sanctioned swim area, secure adequate lifeguard coverage, and obtain proper large event permits to allow for safer and more cost-effective events were rejected by the organizers," the Park District said. "While Chicago's lakefront can be a source of enjoyment, this natural body of water can present life-threatening hazards, even for the most experienced swimmer. Every year, we learn of tragic deaths of individuals along the Lake Michigan shoreline who may have underestimated the risk posed by taking a dip in the water. It is important to note, the vast majority of these tragedies occur within unsanctioned swimming areas and when lifeguards are not present."
Glatt and Novotny told participants that while they can no longer host organized swims, they'd like people to keep coming out and swimming on their own.
Glatt and Novotny started Friday Morning Swim Club back in 2021. Only eight people came to the first event, but hundreds and later thousands began to take part.
