The City Council on Tuesday night approved the Fourth of July fireworks celebration for this year. But the event organizer, Pete Moffett, said this would be his last year, and the council sent a strong message to the business community that it needs to pick up the costs of the annual celebration or the event would likely cease next year.
At issue is the increasing subsidy the city is paying to keep the celebration alive. In addition to $12,000 in police, fire, and public works costs, the city will need to contribute $18,000 in cash for the fireworks event.
Councilman Pat Aust argued against the subsidy. He compared it to the Seaside Ice operation, the privately operated wintertime ice rink at the Seaside Lagoon that the city pulled the plug on last year when it was unable to sustain itself financially.
“It’s just another way for us to subsidize the entertainment of people who aren’t from here or don’t come from anywhere near this city,” Aust said. “…I understand the concept – it’s good for business, good for people to come to the beach. They come here and the fireworks are the draw. Well, the fireworks last a half hour. They are going to come here anyway. I don’t see us, the way the economy is going, subsidizing $18,000 to have a half hour party. I just don’t see it.”
Moffett said some estimates indicated more than 200,000 people attend the event. He said non-residents purchased about 80 percent of the tickets obtained online last year. But Councilman Steve Aspel argued that people throughout south Redondo enjoy block parties throughout the day and then walk to the beach at night to watch the fireworks all the way from Riviera Village to the harbor.
“I think it’s good for the community,” Aspel said.
Moffett, who runs Community Spirit Fireworks and has successfully operated the Christmas fireworks celebration in Manhattan Beach for several years, is in the final year of a five-year contract with Redondo Beach. The contract was structured so that the city would contribute $19,000 its first year – the amount of revenue the city earns through parking in the harbor on the Fourth – and taper down until no cash subsidy was to be required this year.
Moffett took over after the Pier Merchants Association declined to continue supporting the event. His business plan was to produce revenue both through the Seaside Lagoon gate and corporate sponsorships. But last year, only four sponsors participated, and Moffett said he ended up working three months for $3,000 in profit. He said he had no interest in continuing to operate the event beyond this year.
“I gave it my very best but I think there is hardly a business in this country whose business has not changed in the last five years,” Moffett said.
Councilman Matt Kilroy suggested that by keeping the event afloat another year the city perhaps is just delaying the inevitable.
“Sooner or later there is going to be some disappointed and unhappy people, there is no doubt about that,” Kilroy said. “And it is going to be sorely missed if it doesn’t happen next year.”
Councilman Steve Diels argued that the event is far more than a half hour party, given the fact that people arrive early in the day to find parking for the nighttime event and in so doing support businesses throughout the city and especially the harbor.
“We are looking at revitalizing our harbor area and I don’t think it’s a good time to send the message we are tanking,” Diels said.
Kilroy began the night undecided and was finally persuaded by the numbers of the event. He noted that the city spends more than $300,000 annually supporting the Seaside Lagoon in order to bring 100,000 people to the facility, 80 percent of whom are non-residents.
“When you put it in that perspective, this is a deal,” Kilroy said. “So I guess from a numbers perspective, there are a lot of things I’d cut before I’d cut this.”
Aust said that people would come regardless of the fireworks and that the city needed to stop hemorrhaging money.
“The clock is not going to stop,” he said. “People are not going to fly off the Earth. We’ll get through…and in better times, come back to it.”
The subsidy was approved in a 3-1 vote with Aust dissenting, and Councilman Bill Brand absent. But the council urged businesses to step up to save the event for next year.
“At some point, someone has got to come in and do this right….So next year, I would like to see that the businesses step up,” Diels said. ER
