Festival Fight: Changes To Beloved Gilroy Garlic Festival Causes Frustrations For Organizers
STOCKTON (CBS13) — The fight over a major California festival is causing a stink over who gets the garlic.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival is being brought to Stockton this summer, now scheduled for August 13. However, the new promoter said he's saving the beloved festival, not stealing it.
Friday was the opening day of the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival. The event is being promoted by Toni Noceti—the same promoter bringing the former Gilroy Garlic Festival to San Joaquin County.
"It's important to keep it going for the farmers for the community," he said.
But many Gilroy locals are asking: which community?
"You can't take the Gilroy Garlic Festival away from Gilroy," Ken Christopher said. "It's a little bit irresponsible for them to use our legacy for themselves."
Christopher's grandfather was one of the founders of the Gilroy Garlic Festival. He said moving the festival feels more like a hostile takeover.
"They haven't reached out to anyone from the GGF association, the city, my family, or my company," he said.
Noceti said he has.
"I've called everybody involved I could find," he said. "Getting no response from the Christopher family, left a message there, call the office, nobody's answering there."
In April, the Gilroy Garlic Festival announced the event would be canceled for the foreseeable future.
The Noceti family is adamant they aren't stealing anything and are only saving a beloved tradition.
"They say 'we're done,' I don't know how you steal something when they say 'we're done,' " Noceti said.
As for the location, it's reportedly being held at the San Joaquin County fairgrounds this year because it was too late to find another venue.
But Noceti said he's not opposed to moving it closer to its original home.
"We have to go back and look at what properties are available down in that region," he said. "Not saying it's just Gilroy, I got to look at the whole thing overall."
The Noceti group doesn't have rights to the Gilroy Garlic Festival branding, so they plan to call it the San Joaquin Garlic Festival.
