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This weekend’s Adjala-Tosorontio Ribfest is cancelled

July 16, 2020   ·   0 Comments

Organizers of the Alliston ribfest had a bit of a letdown when they couldn’t go forward with a drive-thru event in New Tecumseth this year.

Town Council said the event could take money away from local businesses, so they cancelled the it altogether, which led Adjala-Tosorontio Mayor Floyd Pinto and Councillor Annette Bays to contact its organizer, Ricky Brooks.

Brooks said they were going to provide the Adjala-Tosorontio administration centre parking lot as a venue, however, after hosting their first ribfest of the year in Burlington on Canada Day, he realized there would be safety concerns.

“In order for us to successfully and safely do a drive-thru ribfest we need a large amount of space,” Brooks said.

“The Adjala-Tosorontio municipal building, that parking lot, it’s a large parking lot, but it only has one way in and one way out and it’s quite narrow,” he continued. “The last thing we want is to disappoint a lot of people, make them wait so long where the whole experience was just not what they’re expecting.”

One the biggest issues with the municipal parking lot is if there’s a large lineup of people and they become impatient, there’s no manoeuvrability to get out of the area – folks would be stuck in place essentially, said Brooks. 

“If we do have a volume of cars, we want the vehicles to be able to have the option of exiting at any given moment,” he said.

Going forward, Brooks hopes to bring his ribfest to several malls this summer as they would provide ample space and be the safest option.

“We’re reaching out to Georgian Mall [in Barrie] and other malls in Ontario so that we can have some sort of ribfest event happen before 2020 is over,” he remarked.

Brooks said one of his driving factors for attempting to have rib festivals in 2020 is to “restore hope” after so many other events have been cancelled because of COVID-19.

“If we have the venue space, it’s still delivering that yummy ribfest BBQ to hundreds of thousands of families that look forward to it every year,” he noted.

“Now, they get to enjoy it in the comfort of their home, so we really don’t want to give up, we’re trying to salvage something this year,” Brooks continued.

“Unfortunately it’s not going to happen in Adjala but we’re still hopeful that it will happen in a few different communities across Ontario before the summer ends.”

Looking ahead to 2021, New Tecumseth offered Brooks the PPG Park to host the Alliston Ribfest.

By Sam Odrowski
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

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