Is it the City of New Westminster’s responsibility to tell event organizers the calendar is full and they’ll have to pick another date for a festival?
That’s a question the city has been grappling with in the past years, as organizers of some longstanding events have voiced concerns about other festivals being held on the same weekend or the same day. The city’s festivals committee and city council have discussed whether it’s city hall’s responsibility to tell groups a certain date is off-limits even if there are no impacts on city services like policing, engineering or parks.
“If we can have a variety of events that appeal to a broad range of residents in the city, that’s what we want,” said Diane Perry, the city’s manager of community development. “We all need to be open to everybody’s events. Everybody’s events are important. I think we are a small city, but we are a very active city. Everybody wants to have an event. Unfortunately, there are only so many weekends in the summer if we are going to have an event.”
Mayor Jonathan Cote said the city understands there are “sensitivities” related to having events in similar time frames but also struggles with giving one group a complete monopoly over a particular date.
“I think the challenge we face is we are a growing city and obviously there is a growing demand for different events to happen. The last thing we want to be doing is not allowing new events to start or grow because a certain date is forever reserved for a particular group,” he said. “I think we were sensitive to that and we certainly want to make sure that one event isn’t undermining another event. Having said that, I think that locking up entire weekends and cutting off days for events that aren’t really related or are in different parts of the city might not fully be necessary.”
The city has appointed a staff person to deal with street festivals and another to deal with festivals in parks, with the idea being to have “one-stop shopping” for festival organizers.
Cote believes there’s room in New Westminster for neighbourhood festivals like Sapperton Day, as well as more regional draws like the food truck festival and Uptown Live.
“I actually think the City of New Westminster does more to support street festivals, whether they be more local neighbourhood community-oriented or larger scale, than any other municipality in Metro Vancouver,” he said.
