A Cleveland landmark and cemetery is drawing hundreds of visitors for a reason totally unrelated to its history. People are heading to Lake View Cemetery in droves to play the new Pokemon Go game.
It's the final resting place of more than 100,000 people. It's home to the Garfield memorial, Wade Chapel, and more than 50 Pokemon.
"There's a lot of Pokemon. There's one over there," Elijah Jabson said.
People told NewsChannel 5 they're traveling from across greater Cleveland to play the extremely popular new game in the cemetery.
"The groups I saw were at least 10-15 people apiece," Don Nemcovsky said.
"A lot of my friends are coming here and you can see on the map there are a lot of places to get free items" Ian Barts said.
Not every cemetery visitor was ok with the grounds being used for a game.
"I don't think you need to play a game in a cemetery. I come here for the history," William Cleveland said.
"It just seems, not respectful," Kathleen Cleveland added.
NewsChannel5 asked the players about that.
"Are you concerned at all that this could be viewed as disrespectful?"
"Yes and no, as long as you don't trample the headstones to catch a Pokemon," Jabson said.
Others agreed.
"We get to see people's graves, I guess. It's respectful to come and visit," Barts said.
"If you are actually giving respect to the monuments, and taking time to explore them, I think it's a good thing," Matt Mazur added.
Lake View Cemetery issued the following statement to newsnet5.com regarding the game:
We open our gates daily to families for healing and visitation at our historic landmark cemetery. Our policy is internet games such as Pokemon Go are not an appropriate activity and are strictly forbidden – at all times. We ask that everyone be respectful of our many memorials and our grounds, while not disturbing our many other visitors.
