Friday, May 20, 2005

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Early signup for July 4 parade starts June 1

Peachtree City residents can register early to participate in the city’s annual July 4th parade this year.

City residents will have a full week, from June 1-7, to enter before the parade is opened up to other county residents.

While other Fayette residents will be allowed to take part on a space available basis, the city will not let any out-of-county entries take part unless they are specifically invited to the parade.

City residents and organizations can register for free, but non-city residents and service, civic and church organizations outside the city must pay a $25 fee.

Commercial businesses outside of the city will be charged $50 to enter the parade. All fees will be due by June 17. The fees were instituted to help defray the cost of the annual gathering, which features thousands of Fayette residents lining the route along Peachtree Parkway.

The parade started out for golf carts only but has morphed into a huge event with many local businesses using it for promotional purposes.

Several rules will be in place this year that are aimed at making the parade a local hometown patriotic celebration, since it has become larger and more commercialized than intended, officials said.

“It went too far when large 18 wheelers were allowed in with minimum if any patriotic decorations,” Gaddo said. “It started to be more an opportunity to market a business rather than to celebrate our nation’s independence and the birth of democracy here.”

Safety was one of the reasons to scale the parade back to “more manageable dimensions,” Gaddo said. But city staff will make judgement calls to allow some out-of-county entries in if they enhance the parades “overall or aesthetic appeal,” he added.

Last year, Delta Airlines had a large, gas-filled airplane that gave a certain flavor to the parade, evoking memories of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City as Delta employees held tethers as they walked along the route.

Such unique crowd-pleasing displays are the best chance for out-of-county entries to get staff approval to enter the parade, organizers said.

The parade will start at 9 a.m. Monday, July 4, beginning at Peachtree Parkway near Braelinn Golf Club. It will go north on the parkway until it reaches McIntosh Trail, where the parade route takes a left to the terminus point: Huddleston Elementary School.