By Sidney Madden | @sidney_madden_

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🛑 Where Can Teens Go?

This is the question on a lot of our minds in light of the earlier city curfew and the Millennium Park weekend evening ban for unaccompanied minors, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s response to the killing of 16-year-old Seandell Holliday. Chicago police are now being told to take non-complying teens into custody.

But efforts to keep young people out of the city’s center are hardly new.

In 2019, the Water Tower Place started to require shoppers 17 and younger be accompanied by an adult who is at least 21 Fridays and Saturdays after 4 p.m. Security officers are instructed to check IDs when patrons enter the Gold Coast mall. The rule went into effect following a violent incident on the CTA involving young people, ABC7 reported. 

The city’s decision to raise bridges during summer 2020 escalated tension between police and protesters, many of whom were young, and led to more violence, a watchdog report found. 

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“It’s bad enough that young people don’t have a lot of spaces to go to in the first place, but now you’re taking away one of the most free options for young people to have, which is to go downtown and hang out with their friends.”

Assata Lewis, GoodKids MadCity

So where can teens go? 

After School Matters told City Cast that its summer programs, in Millennium Park and across the city, will end at 5 p.m. Applications are open now. 

YOUMedia Centers offer extracurriculars at library branches across the city.

Teens in the Parks at the Chicago Park District includes sports like softball and archery, and arts and crafts.

Teen Arts Pass from Urban Gateways has a calendar of theater, music, and dance performances, with free and virtual options.

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📰 Newsfeed

Early voting pushed back to May 26. Election officials are making ballot changes — including removing the ward map referendum. Vote-by-mail ballots will begin to ship to voters early next week. [Board of Election Commissioners]

Chicago COVID-19 transmission could soon be high again. Averaging 1,200 new daily cases in the city, some experts say a fifth COVID wave could be coming, but Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said hospitalizations and deaths “remain at or near all-time pandemic lows.” [NBC Chicago]

Ride of Silence for cycling fatalities today. The annual ride will be 7.2 miles, stopping at the sites of three downtown bike crashes. [Streetsblog]

Portillo’s vegan hot dog is…good? Food critic Louisa Chu says so. The plant-based Garden Dog has the signature fixings of the Chicago chain’s regular hot dog, priced at just 30 cents more. [Tribune]

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🏃🏽‍♂️  Where’s Jacoby Been? Going?

City Cast’s Jacoby Cochran could be the busiest Chicagoan. That’s not an exaggeration.

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🚚 Food Truck Recommendations

Friends, I asked for your food truck recs, and we’re all really struggling to think of some! But that isn’t exactly surprising given how hard the pandemic has hit the industry.

Today, there are only 76 licensed food trucks in the city, down from 274 in 2019, a city spokesperson told City Cast. That’s a 72% decrease.

Plus, the food truck scene wasn’t exactly popping before. 

But it’s not all bad news, “the number of food trucks has continued to increase over the last year as the industry recovers post-pandemic,” the spokesperson said.

Nonetheless, here are some food truck recs a la Sid:

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