Friday Fling to return with police patrols and rented barricades, organizers say
The weekly festival was abruptly canceled in late June due to safety concerns, they said.
What you need to know:
- The popular Friday Fling street fair will return to downtown Palmer on Friday following a two-week cancellation.
- Starting this week, large barricades and traffic safety signs rented from a local traffic control company will alert drivers to event-related road closures. Palmer police officers will also patrol the area by bicycle during vendor entrance and exit, officials said.
- Organizers said the cancellation was needed to create a new safety plan due to unsafe vehicle traffic during event setup and teardown.
PALMER – A popular Friday street fair held in downtown Palmer over the summer will return this week with a new safety plan after organizers abruptly canceled two weeks of the event due to unsafe vehicle traffic.
Starting Friday, organizers will place large barricades and road closure signs at intersections near the weekly festival, said Kelly McKay-Dolfi, president of the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the event. Palmer police officers on patrol bicycles will also be in the area during setup and teardown to help direct vendor traffic, she said.
The Friday Fling features dozens of food trucks, craft vendors, and farm stands. The event is held in front of the Palmer Visitor Information Center from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays from mid-May to mid-August. A 0.1-mile stretch of South Valley Way is closed to traffic weekly for the duration of the event.
Prior to the cancellations, road closures had been indicated by traffic safety cones, officials said.
Chamber officials made the short-notice decision to cancel the June 24 and July 5 markets due to what they characterized as safety issues, including vehicles driving through the event's staging area during vendor setup and teardown, and a near-miss vehicle-pedestrian accident after the event closed on June 21.
Chamber officials sent an email to vendors late on June 24, notifying them of the cancellations. A two-week pause, officials said, was needed to give them time to develop a new safety plan.
The chamber has rented barricades and signage for the event from Northern Dane, a Wasilla-based traffic control company, McKay-Dolfi said. An additional six barricades, newly provided by the city of Palmer, may also be used at the festival's entrance and exit points, she said. The chamber also hired a seasonal employee to oversee the remaining five scheduled Friday Fling dates, she said.
The street closure signs and barricades will be placed on the street starting at about 8 a.m. before vendors set up and removed after all vendors have left the area in the evening, she said. A permit issued by the city of Palmer allows the chamber to close the portion of South Valley Way used for the event from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., she said.
-- Amy Bushatz can be contacted at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.
