Monday, March 24, 2025

St. Augustine Commission votes to shrink Nights of Lights festival. (J. Brooks Terry, Jacksonville Business Journal)

The crowds for Nights of Lights show the need for better planning.  The City of St. Augustine badly needs a working trolley car system, like it had until circa 1928. Crowds during g Nights of Lights would be better managed with a working trolley system. Around the Nation, special interests trashed trolley car systems, sticking small and large cities with infernal internal combustion engines.  Even Los Angeles and San Francisco fell for it, pressured by Big Money. Fun fact:s The Treasurer of General Motors was fined one dollar for the antitrust conspiracy.  This was part of the plot in the movie, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit: From Jacksonville Business Journal: 


St. Augustine Commission votes to shrink Nights of Lights festival

The new dates are five days less than last year.


  • By J. Brooks Terry
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  • | 10:08 p.m. March 24, 2025
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  • 4 Free Articles Remaining!
Tourists visit St. Augustine to see the annual Nights of Lights festival.
Tourists visit St. Augustine to see the annual Nights of Lights festival.
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The St. Augustine City Commission approved a resolution March 24 to shorten the Nights of Lights holiday festival by five days compared to its length last year.

The festival will be 57 days from Nov. 15 through Jan. 11, 2026. The dates are in effect for one year.

The vote was 3-2, with Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline and Commissioners Jim Springfield and Jon DePreter supporting the dates. Vice Mayor Barbara Blonder and Commissioner Cynthia Garris opposed them.

The 2024-25 festival ran 62 days from Nov. 23 through Jan. 26. The 2023-24 festival was 78 days from  Nov. 18 to Jan. 28.

A resolution sponsored by Commissioner Blonder originally sought to shorten the festival to 43 days from Nov. 22 through Jan. 4 to support St. Augustine residents’ quality of life by removing traffic congestion brought on by the event.

Commissioner Garris argued the festival should run until after Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, which would end it Jan. 19.

According to the city code, it “allows the City Commission to set the dates for illumination standards for seasonal light displays in the historic districts during the period between the first Saturday in November until the first Sunday of February in the ensuing year.”

Dozens of speakers during public comment urged the Commission to reject Commissioner Blonder’s proposal. They represented the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners, St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce, the county’s tourist development council, the Casa Monica Hotel and Harry’s Seafood Bar & Grille, among many other businesses.

Four residents spoke.

County Commissioner Anne Taylor, whose district includes downtown St. Augustine, said that while she has received many emails about Nights of Lights, none expressed a desire to shorten it.

“Many expressed frustration about parking, but I did not receive one message suggesting Nights of Lights be shortened at all,” she said. “So out of all the suggestions I’ve received, that one was not mentioned. In fact, since shortening the duration has come up I’ve actually heard from residents that shortening it will actually make it busier and have the opposite effect.

“Local residents like myself enjoy the option of going later in January after the holiday. We do all we can to avoid the busier times when there are more visitors. We love having that option.

“I also want to remind everyone that the number one industry in our county is tourism. It is tourism, so we need to support this industry. We need to think about the employees. We need to think about the business owners that will be affected by this and the loss of income. Most employees do not live here in the city limits, and they will be detrimentally affected if this goes through.”

Businesses who later spoke agreed, adding that the Nights of Lights helps shoulder expenses when business would otherwise be slow following the holidays.

Mike Head, representing the Columbia Restaurant and its 200 employees, called the festival an “economic driver.”

“It drives business when hospitality businesses typically see a lull those last few weeks of January, and yet here they all still come,” he said. “Yes, we need to come up with ingenious ways to move and park and transport visitors and locals, but we should not tell them to stop coming.”

Commissioners and speakers agreed that managing traffic flow brought on by Nights of Lights tourism is the primary area needing improvement.

“I think this will work, but will only be OK if we work diligently on the mobility and safety issues,” said Sikes-Kline.

 

1 comment:

Lenny said...

Sundown town? Businesses going tits up because of the rent hogs? Whole livelihoods destroyed and dreams shattered just because some hog just has to take the boat out every day. That and California prices with none of the social services. The working class being pulverized by these yoyos.