DDA Cancels Harvest Festival

The Downtown Development Authority has decided to cancel this year’s Harvest Festival. During the recent DDA meeting, the authority discussed three options for the Harvest Festival prior to deciding to cancel the event.

Main Street Toccoa Events Coordinator Sharon Crosby presented three options for the festival. She says the first option would limit the festival to just one day instead of the typical 2-day festival to cut down on the number of people attending; the second option would be to hold the festival both days but configure the booths in a zigzag formation to increase the space between each booth, eliminate the children’s activities, and put all food vendors in one location separate from the other booths; and the last option would be to cancel the event entirely.

DDA Vice Chair Marilyn Hall recommended the authority cancel the event out of caution for the spread of COVID-19.

“I feel like we should just cancel the event,” she said. “I just feel like there are so many unknowns and we don’t want to prepare our vendors to come and find out that there’s a national mandate or a state mandate that all events are canceled or that we can’t hold this event. So, I think that we are better off to not plan it and cancel it this year than to move forward and plan it and have to cancel it anyway.”

Authority Member Bryan Westmoreland disagreed with Hall, saying COVID-19 can’t prevent the residents of Toccoa-Stephens County from living.

“COVID’s here, it’s here and it’s not going anywhere. Is it going to be here next year? Yeah, it’s going to be here next year. So, we can either stop living or we can put safety protocols in place and do our best. If we decide to have it and we’re not getting any participation then we can pull it, if the schools send the kids home then we can pull it. People can choose not to come, if they don’t feel safe, they don’t have to come,” Westmoreland said.

Authority member Terri Goethe agreed with Westmoreland.

“As a small business owner, we have to continue working in the middle of all this, we can’t stop. Those (Festivals)  are the kind of things that help us,” Goethe said.

Chairman Clint Sanders and Toccoa City Commission Liaison Terry Carter both agreed that the best call would be to cancel the Harvest Festival; despite it being a difficult decision to make.

“I think if we were to try to have it, then we would have to do a mask mandate for it to be anywhere near safe for a crowd like that. And then you’re going to have the headache of half the people getting mad and 25 percent not wearing them. What are you going to do to those who aren’t wearing them? Do you want to make a rule that’s going to be so hard to enforce? That’s going to be a whole new can of worms,” Sanders said.

Hall made a motion to cancel the Harvest Festival with Sanders seconding the motion. The motion passed 3-2 with Goethe and Westmoreland voting against the motion.

In other business, the DDA decided to cancel the annual Costume Parade. Sander said because the DDA decided to cancel the Harvest Festival that it would only make sense to cancel the Costume Parade.

Hall made a motion to cancel the Costume Parade with Sanders seconding the motion. The motion passed 5-0. The DDA also tabled its discussion to possibly cancel Christmas Fest allowing the DDA to have an additional month to consider the risk of COVID-19.