Much to the dismay of local residents and business owners, the Mineola Street Fair was washed out this year, due to inclement weather on both the original date of Sunday, Oct. 2 and rain date of Oct. 9.
The annual event, which was expected to draw thousands of visitors and 160 vendors, takes months of planning. Chamber of Commerce president Tony Lubrano said he was disappointed to have to cancel the fair again this past Sunday, but with rain forecasted for all morning and into the early afternoon, there would have been no time to set up.
“Our fair is a huge undertaking,” Lubrano said. “We try to make it a real community event so there’s a lot of different pieces to the puzzle.”
There is a tremendous amount of pre-work that goes into the fair the day of the festivities. Typically, members from the Chamber of Commerce get to the fair site—which was set to be Jericho Turnpike this year for the second time—at around 6 a.m. to begin marking off spaces for vendors, who begin to arrive around 8:30 a.m. The Village of Mineola Department of Public Works gets there around 7 a.m., to close roads and set up the performance stage. Other groups also need time to set up, such as the junior fire department, which has to assemble and fill the dunk tank, and the Irish American Society who has their own showmobile and tables. One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle, Lubrano said, was having time for the sound technicians to set up for the different bands that were playing throughout the day on the performance stage.
“That sound equipment takes quite a bit of time,” Lubrano said. “They have to be ready for the different bands we have performing and everyone has different needs. Unloading it and setting it up requires a dry sky.”
Members of the Chamber of Commerce met at the Mineola Diner at 6 a.m. on Sunday, keeping a close eye on the forecast, hoping that the weather would clear up and that the fair could go on. However, around 8 a.m. the hard decision was made to call it off.
“It didn’t show any break [in the rain] until somewhere near 12 or 1. There was no time to set up. Even if it stopped raining at 11 a.m., it’s not like we could say the fair was open. Some people still needed time to set up,” Lubrano said. “As disappointed as we were, there was no way we could go on.”
The chamber is already looking ahead to next year’s street fair, which will take place on Sept. 10, 2017. The fair is usually held the second Sunday of September, but with it falling on Sept. 11 this year, the chamber decided to move it to the next available date of Oct. 2.
“We look forward to everyone marking their calendar for Sept. 10,” Lubrano said. “We’re going back to the original plan of the earlier date next year.”
