By Beatrice Toplitsky [1]
BELLEVILLE – The Rotary Club of Belleville says it has no choice but to cancel this year’s Porchfest after new social distancing restrictions were announced just one week before the event was set to be held.
In his Sept. 19 announcement at Queen’s Park [2], Premier Doug Ford announced that the province would be limiting informal outdoor gatherings to no more than 25 people.
“Folks, the alarm bells are ringing,” said Ford in his Saturday broadcast. He went on to say, “We need to take decisive action, as we did in the earlier stages of COVID, to protect our vulnerable and to protect the progress we’ve made together.”
With no feasible way to monitor crowd sizes for the large number of venues, the event’s organizer, Sam Brady, said there was no way for Porchfest to move forward.
Brady told QNet News he has been opening his porch for local musicians since it first began in Belleville 12 years ago. He was asked by the original founders to take over as the organizer, and brought the event to the Rotary Club in 2014.
“If we went ahead with this, I think we would have been seen as being imprudent,” he said. He notes that there has been a shift in public sentiment following Saturday’s announcement.
“There have been a few people that have been negative, saying, ‘This is all a bunch of BS. Why are we cancelling it? There’s no problem here in the Quinte area. We should be able to go ahead and do it.’ But the moment you throw caution to the wind is when something bad happens.”
However, Brady says the response has been mostly supportive, with many locals eager to open their porches again next year. This follows Porchfest’s Facebook statement [3] Saturday explaining the decision to cancel the event.
“I think Porchfest brings a lot,” said Brady. “I love watching music being created, and I think a lot of people do based on how enthusiastically they’ve embraced Porchfest.”
Despite the Rotary Club having to rethink several of this year’s events – including its 100th anniversary, which it celebrated in the spring – Brady says the club will continue its work thanks to the continued backing of the community.
“Our community is so supportive of Rotary and its mandate,” he said. “We’re helping kids in our community in every way that we can, and our community recognizes what good work that the Rotary Club does and has been supporting us for 100 years now.”