Actually, ‘wave parades’ don’t violate NJ stay-at-home orders, police clarify

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — It's how graduations and birthdays are celebrated nowadays: Friends and family drive by your house and wave out their car windows, as to keep with social distancing measures. 

But a weekend directive that appeared to ban the so-called “wave parades” confused residents. New Jersey State Police Superintendent Pat Callahan is here to clarify: Drive-by wave parades are permitted in New Jersey. 

Callahan sent a letter to schools over the weekend saying that wave parades, which “invite people to gather at a certain location,” violate the governor's stay-at-home order. 

At the governor's daily briefing, Callahan clarified that the gathering itself poses a problem, not the act of driving, so drive-by parades are back on, as long as residents proceed safely.

“It's a great gesture to give that sense of solidarity,” he said. “But when there's 50 people standing on top of each other on the curb of a hospital or in front of a high school, that's where the problem comes in.”