Bomb-sniffing dogs? Check. Times Square crowd? Not this year

People have been told they will not be able to watch the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square this year (Frank Franklin II/AP)

New York City police turned to familiar tactics ahead of Thursday’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, deploying bomb-sniffing dogs and sand-filled sanitation trucks intended to guard against explosions.

But the department’s playbook this year includes an unusual mandate: preventing crowds of any size from gathering in Times Square.