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Organizers cancel Old Town St. Patrick's Day parade, citing costs, safety concerns

The decision is effective this year, meaning there will be no St. Patrick's Day parade in 2019.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — If you were looking forward to flooding Old Town for Fort Collins' annual St. Patrick's Day parade this year, you're out of luck.

The parade, a longtime tradition that brought slews of floats and families to Old Town every St. Patrick's Day weekend, is officially retired, according to a Downtown Fort Collins Business Association news release sent Thursday.

The decision is effective this year, meaning there will be no St. Patrick's Day parade in 2019. It is the second longtime DBA event to be retired in the past six months. In September, the association pulled the plug on First Night Fort Collins, Old Town's 22-year-old New Year's Eve celebration.

The DBA cited a "perfect storm of collective challenges" as the reason for canceling the parade — including rising costs of producing the parade, safety requirements, crowd control and traffic management.

"Recent tragedies at parades and gatherings throughout the world have forced responsible event organizers to implement enhanced best-practice preventative measures, which in turn, naturally drives up the costs of producing a parade," the release read. "What was once a sleepy small town gathering has evolved into a complicated large-scale production."

Click/tap here to reading this story on the Coloradoan.

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