CINCINNATI — The Northside Fourth of July Parade route won't have to shorten its spectacle this year, organizers announced Thursday.
Becky Finnigan, co-chair of the parade, said Cincinnati police and organizers reached an agreement to keep the parade its full 1.5 mile route.
In March, the City of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Police Department's Special Events Unit contacted the parade's organizers to discuss issues with the celebration.
Any event that shuts down city streets requires police officers to oversee those closures and maintain community and traffic safety. Finnigan said that in the past, organizers have been able to manage the event with the services of 10-12 officers.
But a change in how CPD is handling its involvement in the parade almost impacted how the event could be held: The parade detail is now managed by CPD's Special Events Unit, which determined more police officers would be necessary to ensure proper safety at the event. Finnigan said CPD suggested 32 officers, more than doubling last year's detail.
In addition, in the past on-duty officers were permitted to staff special events, but that's no longer allowed.
Now, CPD has agreed to provide the aid of some officers from the Special Events Unit and a neighborhood liason unit to cover the parade. Finnigan said she believes the community rallying to fill the event's volunteer detail helped the city make its decision.
WCPO reached out to the city about the change. A spokesperson said what made the Northside parade unique is that its scale is significant — longer than both the Reds Opening Day Parade and the Pride Parade.
The city initially suggested re-routing the parade through alternate routes, including cutting the length of the parade route in half. Finnigan said that would have kept the parade only partially on Hamilton, moving much of it through residential streets.
The proposal wasn't a popular one among either organizers or Northside residents.
"The idea of shortening the parade route is really, really upsetting," said Lou Doench, who typically watches the parade from his property. "It's going to cram a couple thousand people that would normally be stretched all the way up to the Comet (pub) into a much smaller space. It's going to make it more crowded."
