NEWPORT BEACH : Parade Sponsors Face Crowd-Control Fee
A local merchants association, hoping to present an encore to last year’s Community Pride Day Parade and to establish it as an annual event, first must clear a $1,200 roadblock.
The event was sponsored by the city of Newport Beach last year to coincide with the dedication of a new fire station. The Balboa Island Business Assn. planned to sponsor the second annual festival and parade on Marine Avenue this year on June 11.
But the City Council has balked at a request to pay the $1,200 cost of having five police officers on duty for crowd and traffic control, and the merchants group says it can’t afford to pick up the tab.
The association’s 60 members pay $100 each in annual dues, and the group’s entire budget is $6,000, secretary Carolyn Carr said. Spending a fifth of the budget for one event, she said, would not be reasonable.
The Balboa Island Improvement Assn. and Little Balboa Island Assn., to be co-sponsors of the event, have been working with the business association to create a district similar to the one recently formed to sponsor promotions on the Balboa Peninsula. It will not come together in time for a parade in June.
The City Council on Monday approved a permit for the event but asked the association to seek ways to hold down expenses.
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