Update / Follow-up on the news

Issue: Holiday Dispute

A parade to replace the city’s annual Tet Festival will be held Feb. 8 on Bolsa Avenue, the City Council decided this week.

The Tet Festival, which has been mired in controversy almost every year since its inception in 1980, was called off earlier this month.

Mayor Frank G. Fry said the cancellation stemmed from a lack of planning by festival organizers, but many in the community blamed political infighting between the newly elected mayor and Councilman Tony Lam, a longtime organizer of Tet festivities.

Fry said this week that he hopes to see the festival return next year. In the meantime, he said, the parade will provide the best alternative and should help appease Bolsa Avenue merchants, who said in past years that the three-day Tet Festival hurt their businesses.

“I feel the parade is the best answer,” Fry said. “I think more people will come to the area to buy stuff, and they’ll be able to get into the shops. That’s an advantage because the other way, when you close off the area, those shops don’t do any business for three days.”

Tet, which falls on Feb. 7 this year, celebrates the lunar new year and is the most important cultural and religious holiday for the Vietnamese.

The parade the next day will begin at 11 a.m. at Bolsa Avenue and Magnolia Street and finish at Bolsa and Bushard Street by 1 p.m., event coordinator Peter Nguyen said.

The parade is expected to cost $18,000 to $22,000, which will be raised through private donations and possibly some city funds, Nguyen said.

--COMPILED BY JOHN POPE AND HOPE HAMASHIGE