Love Locks To Be Removed From Long Island Park Footbridge

KINGS PARK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- State parks officials plan to remove all the locks of love that have been mounted on the Sunken Meadow Park footbridge fencing.

They are worried about the accumulation of weight from the locks used in the romantic ritual, WCBS 880 Long Island Bureau Chief Mike Xirinachs reported.

Officials are giving the owners of the locks this week to remove them before they clear the bridge themselves.

Some parkgoers said they fully understand.

"Kind of like carving your initials in a tree," one woman said. "If you're going to hurt the tree, the romantic doesn't win over taking care of nature."

Another woman said officials should try to find a way to keep the locks that won't endanger the bridge.

"I think it's adorable," she said.

Margaret and Emil Dawkins told CBS2's Jessica Schneider that part of their daily walk through the park involved stopping to inspect the love locks that adorn the footbridge.

The Dawkins said the locks remind them of when they first fell in love more than 20-years-ago.

"It's a symbol of maybe the date they fell in love, the day they met, or got engaged, or the day they were married," Emil said.

More than 20,000 o the locks can be found on the bridge, but they will soon suffer the same fate as the locks removed from the Brooklym Bridge last year, and the 700,000 locks that were removed from a bridge in Paris, France in June, after engineers discovered that their collective weight had caused a bridge railing to collapse.

"We encourage our visitors to express their friendship and love in other ways. Due to safety concerns, state park plans to remove any locks on Friday," the New York State Parks Department said.

Art Harris said he thinks it's ridiculous that a few dozen locks could weigh down the bridge.

"It's not going to hut anybody, the bridge isn't going to fall down," he said.

Others believe the locks are helping to quickly rust the bridge.

"It's our job to protect the environment, and if the bridge will be damaged we should find another place," Ann Glasser said.

Jogger Mary Stajk said by removing the locks, the state is stepping on lovers' passions.

"I am opposed to it, because I do enjoy seeing the love that blossoms here, because this is a place of love," she said.

The parks department said anyone looking to retrieve their lock van do so at the parks building at Sunken Meadow.

In April, the New York City Department of Transportation removed 450 love locks from the Brooklyn Bridge.