Hi everyone,
I wanted to ask for the community’s and staff’s guidance regarding nominations located directly next to or on the perimeter walls of prisons, correctional facilities.
Are objects located right against a prison wall or on the outer perimeter considered eligible, or do they fall under sensitive or unsafe locations due to security concerns?
How should reviewers handle nominations placed in these areas where playing or gathering might raise security flags with facility guards?
If an existing Wayspot is located right against a prison boundary, is it eligible for removal request under unsafe/sensitive location criteria?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and official clarifications. Thanks!
Hello and welcome to the forums,
I would consider anything technically on the property of the prison to be ineligible.
Are we talking across the street?
If you had some examples, it would help us determine the correct answer.
Thanks for replying!
In my case, it’s a playground located just about 5 meters away from the prison boundary wall you can actually see the wall in the background of the Wayspot photo itself.
I was worried because I read on the forums that nominations near sensitive/restricted facilities (like hospitals, fire stations, etc) often get rejected. On top of that, playing raids there feels pretty uncomfortable since facility guards sometimes watch people gathering near the wall, which creates a creepy vibe.
I’m mostly trying to figure out if this should have been approved in the first place or if it’s at risk of being removed, as I’d hate to lose a local Gym if someone reports it
I’m confused as to why anyone would want to build a playground beside a prison… but it is what it is I guess.
If it’s a legitimate city/county build playground and it’s on the other side of the wall I guess it’s fine? Is there a whole park there, or is it just the playground?
There is a house nearby, a small and old one. The playground belongs to it, but it was built right under the prison wall
If something gives me a “creepy vibe” then I don’t submit it. If it is live, then I don’t play there. If I think the authorities who manage the property would not want a Pokestop/gym there, I find a contact to send a message to let them know the game location exists if they want to do anything about it.
Since you are intentionally not giving the location, and I completely respect that, there is no way for us to say if the playground meets criteria or not. And removal criteria seems to be a subset of rejection criteria which is for internal use and not shared with us, so we might not even be able to say whether it meets removal criteria, even if we see the location.
If the house it belongs to is a single family private residential property or a day care, then the playground that belongs to it should meet removal criteria.
If it’s on the property of a house, then it’s on private property and should be reported for removal.
Merely being CLOSE to something isn’t a concern (unless it’s obstructing an access point).
As an example, I’ve had several nominations that are next door to, or across the street from, schools. (For example, many Catholic churches have a school on property, but nominations in and around the church itself are fine.) The rule only applies to the actual school (or other disallowed facility).
However, in the case you are talking about… it sounds like this “playground” is part of a single family residential lot. If that is true, it’s ineligible because of that. Does not matter what’s next door.
Whilst this seems to have been solved and sounds like SFPRP, I do have this situation in a town nearby (I remember the prison is actually a Wayspot too so I should probably flag that).
The walls of the prison are super high so there’s no real risk or anything and people could walk that pathway for years and not know it was a prison. The play area has basketball courts and playgrounds etc. which are all fine Wayspots
If there is a public play area next to a prison, the authorities have intentionally located these near to each other and there cannot be any legitimate concern about people gathering on and using the playground.
If you felt unsafe playing Pokemon Go at the playground because guards were watching, then people using the playground equipment itself would have the same problem. This would be an unusual situation, but I would have no issue with the wayspot existing.
