Naples council discussing possible changes to downtown parades

The Naples city council is entertaining ideas of reigning in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade by making changes to it, in order to reflect what one councilwoman says is the “image of Naples.”

The parade draws in tens of thousands of people every year.

Most of the parades held in Naples are in heavily populated areas like 5th Avenue, where people come to visit. Officials say these parades bring in great crowds, which could actually disrupt local businesses. They say the city needs to find a balance.

“I like it because it brings people out that I may not see all the time, like oh hey I didn’t realize you’re in town,” said Naples resident Amy Keys.

Keys says every year she goes to the different parades held in Naples and she’d hate to see them shortened or changed.

“People like to celebrate, and not sure how you would scale that back,” Keys said.

On Monday, city councilors discussed the possibility of scaling them back. Every year, Naples holds over 350 events across the city, and some officials say they last too long and are outdated.

“And I’ve never found the throwing of candy to be in the image of Naples,” said city councilwoman Ellen Seigel.

Dana Souza, the community services director, says parades put a strain on local businesses in the area. He says the St. Patrick’s Day parade brings in tens of thousands of people with several dozen different participants.

“In terms of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, perhaps limiting the number of entries. For the Christmas parade and the Fourth of July parade, the entries are limited to 80 and the St. Patrick’s Day parade had more than 80 entries,” Souza said.

One of the issues is figuring out how to attract people to downtown areas for the parades, and also get them to dine at local restaurants and shop at local businesses too.

“When you’re talking about the length of the parade, how long will people really hang in there if it’s a hot day? Will people stay for the full event if it drags on or if it’s over 100 entries or is it too long? So it negatively impacts business when they are open and people want to be here doing their day to day routine so that’s part of the balance,” Souza said.

But some neighbors say they don’t agree.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to cut back. I mean, they are having a parade downtown, it brings people out, it’s good for the town. The more people, the better,” said neighbor Ruth Matthews.

Officials say their next step is to dig deeper into what negative impacts the parades have and present those to the city council at a later date.