A. The City Council finds and declares that it has historically closed city streets in portions of the downtown area for the purpose of assisting certain community and regional events benefitting downtown Visalia, the community at large and non-profit business organizations operating in the city. Control over the operation of these community and regional events has traditionally been turned over to the entity sponsoring the event. The city council finds and declares that there is a need to provide written guidelines and regulations on how these downtown community and regional events shall operate. In enacting this provision, it is not the intent of the council to declare all events held in downtown Visalia a declared "downtown annual community event." Events not declared a "downtown annual community event" shall not be subject to the provisions of this chapter.
B. Downtown annual community events, include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. Breakfast Lions Club Car Show, generally held in May;
2. Lions Club Band Review, generally held in October;
3. Hometown Heroes, generally held in October;
4. Taste of the Arts, generally held in October;
5. Race Against Hunger, generally held on Thanksgiving Day;
6. Candy Cane Lane Parade, generally held the Monday after Thanksgiving.
a. Any person seeking to have a public event declared a downtown annual community event shall seek a declaration from the city council at least ninety (90) days prior to the event. If a street closure is required in connection with the proposed downtown annual event, such request shall be made at the same time.
b. The city council may by resolution delegate the authority to declare a downtown annual event, and to temporarily close city streets in connection therewith, to the city manager and/or their designee.
c. In addition to being an outdoor public event utilizing public areas in downtown Visalia, with the stated number of attendees, in order to qualify as this type of event the event must show that it has routinely occurred, which can be proved by showing that the event has been held for at least three of the prior five calendar year before the application is submitted. Any year where an applicant can provide reasonable evidence to city staff that the event was planned but not able to move forward due to weather concerns, or public safety issues can still be accounted for as a year the event was held, if the applicant went through the special event permitting process with the City of Visalia and complied with relevant requirements for meeting good neighbor policies with adjacent businesses.
C. Permit requirements for downtown annual community events. Qualifying events shall meet typical requirements for special events except that the good neighbor policy shall not be required since the event has routinely occurred in the same location. In addition, if an event changes location or increases in size by more than twenty-five percent (25%), then staff can determine the downtown annual community event has significantly changed and can require compliance with the good neighbor policy over the impacted area. (Ord. 2023-12 § 2 (part), 2023)