After a decades-long run, the Gilroy Garlic Festival — an event known around the world — has been canceled for this year and “perhaps the foreseeable future,” organizers say.
In addition to being one of the Bay Area’s most notable festivals and a major tourist attraction, the event is Gilroy’s biggest charitable fundraiser, having garnered more than $12 million over the years for schools and local nonprofits. Neither Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley’s office nor the city manager’s office replied to requests for comments or details about the city’s liability issues and the status of pending lawsuits from the 2019 festival. On July 28 of that year, a gunman cut through a festival fence, killed three people and wounded 17 others before killing himself during a shootout with responding police officers.
“The best years were in the 1990s and early 2000s when we got record crowds and really felt the whole community coming together to raise money for the city, schools and businesses locally. … Hopefully, we can revisit a comeback in the future.” Insurance costs aside, Cline said the Garlic Festival has been facing financial challenges in eight of the last 10 years. The group lost $400,000 in 2018 and went into the hole in 2019, though by a lesser amount. Organizers had originally hoped to host a festival in 2020 as a symbol of unity after the 2019 shooting that left three people dead. But the pandemic threw a wrench in those plans.
Just have it at that city council woman’s house
There's now a bigger one in Fresno 🤷🏼♂️