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Fort Myers locals have mixed feelings about ZombiCon move

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FORT MYERS, Fla. – Residents have mixed feelings about the Fort Myers City Council’s decision to move ZombiCon from downtown.

City leaders voted to reject ZombiCon as a downtown event Monday night, in the last council meeting of 2015. The decision comes after Tyrell Taylor was gunned down and five others were injured in a shooting at the event in October.

Southwest Florida Security, the company that ran security for this year’s ZombiCon, says the move needed to happen. President of SWFL Security Jesse Morgan says the event has gotten too big for downtown.

“A different location would be better because then we could actually control our accesses and entrances and stuff like that, because there was no control, because it was an open event,” said Morgan. “Anyone could walk with anything they want to.”

While the council’s decision was unanimous, local have mixed feelings about it.

Robert Garcia, who was injured at ZombiCon years ago and hasn’t been back since, agrees with the council’s decision to move the event from downtown. He says he would feel safer if the event were in a more controlled environment.

“This could be a one time thing, but at the end of the day, there are 40,000, 30,000 people there one night and I think that spells trouble,” said Garcia.

Megan Luce lives downtown and was at ZombiCon the night of the shooting. She says the shooting won’t stop her from going to the event in the future but she doesn’t think it will be the same if it’s no longer downtown.

“ZombiCon is a moneymaker for Fort Myers. Everybody loves it, everyone comes down, residents love it and it would be a shame to see it go,” said Luce. “I’m not sure of this was the best decision for Fort Myers.”

“I think it could have been a little bit more secure than it was,” said Joel Brown. “I mean with it not happening in downtown Fort Myers, a lot of these businesses are going to lose out on a lot of money.”

Business owners in the area also had mixed reaction to the move vote. Some say they will miss the business ZombiCon would bring in while other say the event is more of a problem than a benefit.

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