Anaheim Halloween Bash May Be Off for Lack of Affordable Insurance

For 61 years, trick-or-treaters have had a special place to go in Anaheim. Not just on Halloween, but for several days of festivities that included a festival and parade.

This year, however, the city’s annual Halloween Fall Festival and parade are in danger of being canceled unless sponsors can find affordable liability insurance, officials said Tuesday.

The cancellation of Anaheim’s Halloween bash would be a blow to the county’s largest city, but it is not the only special event in Orange County that has been threatened by the lack of insurance.

A Newport Beach homeowners’ group canceled a Fourth of July picnic, Tustin canceled its chili cook-off last month and about 15 longtime participants in Orange’s Street Fair dropped out from this year’s Labor Day festivities, all because of a lack of insurance or the skyrocketing cost of such coverage.

“The City of Modesto canceled their Veterans Day Parade. To me, that’s like motherhood and apple pie. That just shows you how strong cities feel about liability insurance,” Anaheim Risk Manager Tom Vance said.

William C. Taormina, director of the annual Halloween Festival Parade, asked the City Council Tuesday to help the community group--which has overseen the festival for more than 10 years--to find liability insurance.

Taormina explained that he had not found an insurance company that would commit itself to provide the insurance, especially for the parade, because it is held at night and involves motorized vehicles.

Last year, insurance coverage for the parade cost $3,000, contrasted with $450 in 1980, Taormina said.

There were minor accidents last year, including a float engine causing a small fire, but there were no injuries, Taormina said. “It’s a very safe, well-run parade,” he added.

Chris Jarvi, director of Anaheim parks, recreation and community services, said he would recommend that an established organization oversee and assume responsibility for liability coverage for the event. However, Jarvi recommended that the festival not become a “totally city-sponsored event.”

In a memo to the City Council, Jarvi also noted that preparations for the Halloween festival already are behind schedule.

“We are concerned that the festival, as the most important community event in our city, is in danger of failing or faltering,” Jarvi wrote.

Vance and City Atty. Jack White are expected to propose possible solutions to the council regarding the Halloween Fall Festival.

In other cities facing similar dilemmas over liability insurance coverage, the Big Canyon Homeowners Assn. in Newport Beach canceled its annual Fourth of July bash--complete with fireworks--because it could not get insurance, City Manager Robert L. Wynn said. Another group, the Newport Heights Homeowners Assn. last month canceled a block party in a park for the same reason, Wynn said.

In Tustin, cooks put away their spices and spoons when the cost of $1 million in insurance coverage for a chili cook-off went from $400 last year to $10,000 this year, “an exorbitant amount of money,” said Tustin recreation superintendent Susan M. Jones.

Another Tustin party, the three-day Tiller Days festival in the fall, “will be a dry event,” Jones said. Sale of beer and wine was banned due to the lack of alcohol liability insurance, she explained.

In Orange, the popular Street Fair that last year drew about 350,000 people came close to being canceled. To continue with the event, the nonprofit corporation that runs the fair is mandating for the first time that all participants carry their own insurance, said Sabine Wromar, Orange administrative analyst.

As a result, about 15 craft artists who have been involved with the fair for more than a decade had to pull out because they could not afford the insurance, she said.

Meanwhile, the Street Fair Corp. had to get $500,000 worth of liquor liability insurance on top of $1 million in other insurance. The cost of such coverage jumped from $3,000 in 1984 to about $26,000 this year, Wromar said.