Plainfield, NJ Special Events & Permits: Block Party Permits (2026)

The City of Plainfield has no stand-alone block party ordinance. The only place the Municipal Code names a block party is the Schedule of License and Permit Fees in § 9:17-1, in the row for public entertainment with fixed license fees. That row groups block parties with sidewalk and street encroachments, festivals, street meetings, demonstrations, and field and sports events. The fee column prints $25 per day per event; $25 per 2-hour slot and $250 refundable cleaning deposit. The Section Reference cell for that row is blank, so the schedule itself does not name the article that licenses the event.

Because the fee row files block parties under public entertainment, the licensing rules in Chapter 9, Article 9 are the closest governing text. Section 9:9-2 bars anyone from conducting a type of public entertainment without first obtaining the appropriate license and paying the required fee, if any. Section 9:9-3(a) requires an application for a public entertainment license, signed by the parties conducting the affair, to be filed with the License Bureau not less than three days in advance of the event. Section 9:9-7(a) sends the fee question back to the Article 17 schedule.

Section 9:9-7(b) lists who pays no fee: bona fide charitable and religious not-for-profit organizations that apply the entire proceeds to their purposes, activities sponsored directly by the Board of Education or the Division of Recreation, events where the City Council has waived the fee by resolution on a Business Administrator recommendation showing good cause, and events sponsored or cosponsored by the City of Plainfield.

Closing a street is a separate power. Under § 16:2-2, the Director of Public Affairs and Safety or a designee can promulgate a regulation temporarily closing streets or parts of streets to vehicular or foot traffic when he deems it in the interest of public safety or convenience, and the closure must be posted with warning signs. The Code does not tie that power to a block party application.