Juneteenth New Jersey event in Newark abruptly canceled over crowd safety concerns
NEWARK, N.J. -- A Juneteenth event in Newark was abruptly canceled after Essex County officials had concerns about the number of people who would attend and their safety, but organizers are blaming the county.
Branch Brook Park was the proposed site for the Juneteenth New Jersey event on Sunday.
On Thursday, Juneteenth New Jersey, a for-profit organization, announced the surprising decision to cancel the event.
"We have pleaded with county leaders to reconsider this decision and they are not willing to meet with us," Juneteenth New Jersey said in a statement.
Juneteenth New Jersey held events at American Dream in East Rutherford and Liberty State Park in Jersey City in the past.
"You get to see a lot of Black American pride, a lot of Black American celebration of our heritage and to have that stripped away from us is disappointing," said Hanif Adams Davis.
Davis, an Army veteran, owns Hadez Food Truck, one of the many vendors scheduled to work Sunday's event.
In the statement on social media, Juneteenth New Jersey shared screenshots of emails and detailed a timeline of communication between organizers and county officials. They said they were given 10 days notice to come up with $35,000 for Essex County Police for security. The event was canceled when they couldn't come up with the money by the county's deadline.
County officials said event organizers were planning too big of an event in too little time.
"They didn't do their due diligence. They did not follow the process. They were trying to put this together in six weeks. You can't do it," said Essex County Executive Joe Divencenzo.
County administrators said the original number on the application for the minimum number of attendees at the event was 3,000. But organizers changed it to 10,000 on a phone call Thursday, they said.
"It would have been tough for us to do, but we would have worked it out and we would have done it. But then when the number went to 10,000, and then last year when I looked, over 20,000 people they had. We just can't do it," said Divencenzo.
"God forbid something goes crazy and we have, 'Well, why did you allow 20,000 people to come to Branch Brook Park knowing that that could be a disaster?' That's a tough one to explain," said Essex County Administrator Robert Jackson.
Juneteenth New Jersey's organizers canceled their interview with us.
Essex County officials said there's still a two-day Juneteenth festival planned at Weequahic Park this weekend.