BY PEPPER FISHER
Port Angeles – The Fourth of July celebration in Port Angeles is going to be bigger and better than ever this summer, even though, for the first time in decades, there will be no fireworks show.
That’s according to Chamber of Commerce Director Marc Abshire, who says the fireworks issue comes down to not having a safe place on the waterfront this year to launch them. But there’s a plan in place for next year.
“Good news, bad news. The good news is, lots of development along the waterfront. Bad news is, it takes up open space where you can actually safely have explosives and launch fireworks. So, that’s why we are moving to just doing launches off of a barge from now on. The hang up right now is that we can’t find a barge for this year. We don’t have the funds to even pay for it if we did find one. But we’re working on it for next year and the following year. Because we want fireworks to be back in the harbor. We’re just going to have to…it’s going to take a year, or a year-and-a-half probably, to figure that out.”
Abshire reminds us that the entire waterfront district is going to come alive with more things to see and do than ever from noon until around 10:00. The parade will be moving through the downtown area, the City Pier will host the Heart Tribute band Barracuda, and there will more features than ever at this year’s giant Kid Zone.
This year’s Fourth of July celebration will also have pickleball and cornhole tournaments, a hot dog eating contest, and the US Navy is coming back to town, sailing in on a warship that will be open for tours.