No go for Colombian parade through the Grove
Marino Ossa Eslait, productions and logistics coordinator for the Batalla de Flores Festival, which is put on by O/E Arts Culture, spoke before the BID marketing committee on Tuesday.
Marino and his group had a large festival planned for the Center Grove for March 12, but they neglected to get permits in time so the BID committee turned down their request.
They wanted to close down Commodore Plaza and Main Highway and have a parade with about 25 jazz bands which would lead to Peacock Park for a concert that would go into the night. The street closure would have been from noon to about 6 pm, merchants on the BID marketing committee were concerned about the hard closures and lack of traffic flow on a weekend.
O/E Arts Culture put on a Colombian festival recently in Peacock Park, which went very well, but it was contained to the park and did not cause any street closures.
This planned March event is the fourth of four they had planned for this year. They previously had their events in downtown Miami, but because of scheduling problems, they were not permitted to have the event there.
Marino spoke of "working with the Grove community," but to be honest, no one knew who he was and he has never approached the Grove community before. He did try to sidestep the Grove community by asking the City Commission for permits. The Commission agreed to giving them a waiver, which would allow them to have an event even though there was another event the same weekend, but they did not grant them permission to have the event, that was up to the BID committee, which turned them down by a unanimous vote. The police department was also against the parade.
At this writing, Marino tells me he is not sure if he will still do the Peacock Park concert part of the event now.
Marino and his group had a large festival planned for the Center Grove for March 12, but they neglected to get permits in time so the BID committee turned down their request.
They wanted to close down Commodore Plaza and Main Highway and have a parade with about 25 jazz bands which would lead to Peacock Park for a concert that would go into the night. The street closure would have been from noon to about 6 pm, merchants on the BID marketing committee were concerned about the hard closures and lack of traffic flow on a weekend.
O/E Arts Culture put on a Colombian festival recently in Peacock Park, which went very well, but it was contained to the park and did not cause any street closures.
This planned March event is the fourth of four they had planned for this year. They previously had their events in downtown Miami, but because of scheduling problems, they were not permitted to have the event there.
Marino spoke of "working with the Grove community," but to be honest, no one knew who he was and he has never approached the Grove community before. He did try to sidestep the Grove community by asking the City Commission for permits. The Commission agreed to giving them a waiver, which would allow them to have an event even though there was another event the same weekend, but they did not grant them permission to have the event, that was up to the BID committee, which turned them down by a unanimous vote. The police department was also against the parade.
At this writing, Marino tells me he is not sure if he will still do the Peacock Park concert part of the event now.
posted by Tom Falco at 11:00 AM
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