Can the redesigned State Street support the return of parades?
Santa Barbara’s police chief isn’t sure.
While the Santa Barbara Holiday Parade will be held on State Street this year, Police Chief Kelly Gordon couldn’t guarantee whether the future reconfigured State Street could accommodate other parades.
“There are a lot of things to consider,” Gordon said during last week’s State Street Master Plan discussion of the Santa Barbara City Council. “Moving to the master plan does not guarantee that there are parades on State Street.”
The ability to have parades will depend on the final design and configuration, Gordon said. It also will depend on street closures and transportation needs in the rest of the city.
“I know we’re going to try the Holiday Parade down State in December, and that will be the first to see really what is possible, what is not possible, because there are a lot of different pieces that go with that,” Gordon said.
She was clear that the Old Spanish Days Fiesta parade won’t be able to return to downtown.
“It’s not an option,” Gordon said. “It’s not wide enough to put horses. We see the challenges that we experience just on Cabrillo, and we just saw that, and from a safety standpoint, bringing Fiesta back to State Street is not an option.”
A horse rider in the Old Spanish Days Fiesta Historical Parade was injured earlier this year after her horse fell and landed on top of her.
A video posted to Instagram showed the horse rearing up during the parade and falling backward onto its rider as the parade was making its way along East Cabrillo Boulevard.
“It’s not just the parade itself; it’s how do we still handle public safety within the city?” Gordon said.
During last week’s City Council meeting, Councilman Oscar Gutierrez said he has heard from business owners that having parades on State Street wasn’t good for business. Parking and sidewalk space were taken up by people watching the parade, not by people shopping or buying food.
Tess Harris, the city’s State Street master planner, said she has heard similar things from retail businesses.
Aron Ashland, owner of The Cruisery at 501 State St., said he loves the parades, even though they aren’t necessarily good for business.
In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ashland said he remembered people setting up chairs outside to watch the parade and families asking to use the restroom who weren’t necessarily interested in buying a drink.
“We do more business now that the Fiesta parade is down on the water because I think the people that come up here are actually looking to drink and party,” Ashland told Noozhawk. “They find what they’re looking for, and then everyone else, the families, they’re all down by the beach and having fun, and they keep playing down there.”
Bob Stout, owner of the Wildcat Lounge at 15 W. Ortega St., agreed that the Fiesta parade should stay by the beach, but he said he hopes to see other parades return downtown.
However, he agreed that the parades don’t necessarily mean more business.
“A lot of businesses didn’t really do any better on parade days,” Stout said.
During the Fiesta parade, Stout said he knows a lot of businesses dealt with people coming in just to use the restroom and would track in confetti with them.
“This year I heard from more of the bars and restaurants and coffee shops that they really did more business not having the parade downtown, and really enjoyed this year,” Stout said. “Fiesta was, for a lot of us, an overwhelming success.”
While Stout said Wildcat wasn’t particularly impacted by the parades either way, he’s excited to see the holiday parade come back.
Ashland also said he’s looking forward to the holiday parade as he loves the energy that the parades brought to State Street.
“I personally would like them back, but I don’t know that it’s good for business up here,” Ashland said.
He said he also understands Gordon’s safety concerns. He said she once told him that if there was an emergency during a parade, there wouldn’t be a lot of places for people to go and get away from the street.
