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By Lookout Staff
June 29 -- It may still be June, but Santa Monica
is celebrating the Fourth of July Saturday with spectacular
fireworks and plenty of entertainment at Santa Monica College.
"Celebrate America" -- the popular outdoor festival
held annually at Corsair Field -- will feature the city’s
only fireworks show and entertainment by the rhythm-and-blues
bands House Brew and J.D. Hall & the J.D. Hall Band.
Gates to the field at 16th Street and Pico Boulevard will
open at 5 p.m. and entertainment starts at 6 p.m. The fireworks
-- by Pyro Spectaculars -- will be at dusk.
Celebrants can bring picnic dinners or buy food from one
of the many vendors at the event. Alcoholic beverages, glass
containers, barbecues and fireworks are prohibited. The event
is free but donations are welcome.
Santa Monica College has been hosting fireworks for 24 years,
and for nearly two decades the college’s celebration
has been Santa Monica’s sole fireworks display.
The City’s evening fireworks display at the Pier, which
drew hundreds of thousands of spectators from Santa Monica
and surrounding communities, were scrapped in the late 1980s
due to traffic and safety concerns.
In 1990, and the City began holding a "Dawn's Early
Light" celebration at 4:45 am in hopes that the early
hour would result in smaller crowds. The plan, however, backfired
when Dawn's Early Light drew 250,000 people in 1991 and required
the full deployment of police and fire forces.
In 1992, faced with a celebration that would cost nearly
$100,000 and clog the city's streets with traffic, the City
Council decided to shelve the fireworks altogether in favor
of a small afternoon celebration in Palisades Park.
For years, the council co-sponsored the college's fireworks
and limited the City's celebration to afternoon park festivities.
Now the park festival has been dismantled, and the City's
only role in Fourth of July celebrations is its financial
contribution to the event at the college.
Presenting sponsors of the event are the City of Santa Monica
and the SMC Associated Students.
Parking is $5. For information, call (310) 434-3001.
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