A Budweiser-sponsored summer festival slated to kick off this evening may not happen because its liquor license was denied at the last minute, prompting charges of racial bias.
Organizers behind the Puerto Rican Cultural Festival in Providence, RI, said the city’s licensing board has denied them a permit to sell alcohol at the event, which is scheduled to begin tonight at the Providence Piers.
Festival organizers say that denial will effectively shut down the gathering since they need the Bud sponsorship to pay for security at the event, which could draw anywhere from 2,500 to 12,000 attendees to the waterfront location over the course of the weekend.
The organizers charged that the city board’s decision was racially motivated. But Providence city board vice chairman Gordon Fox, who is also leader of the Democratic majority in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, said the board simply didn’t have enough information about the event to issue the liquor permit.
Behind the denial is an ongoing dispute between a would-be waterfront developer backing the festival and some businesses located near Providence Piers. A hearing on Tuesday night for a zoning variance to enable the festival heard those business owners testify that the site—still largely zoned for industry—did not have enough parking for the event and contained too many injury hazards to accommodate large crowds.
Press reports quote festival president Carmen Bucholz as saying the Puerto Rican Cultural Festival has been in planning for months, and that it’s unfair to put it on hold at this late date.
Organizers say the festival is intended to commemorate the 515th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s 1493 landfall in Puerto Rico.
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