BETHLEHEM, Pa. (WLVT) - Bethlehem’s 99th annual Halloween parade is the latest casualty of COVID-19 related crowd restrictions.
"There has been a cascade since March; evaluating what is safe to do, when is it safe to do that and at this time we’re still not quite at the point where we can say it’s safe to do that with a number of things," explains City Administrator Eric Evans, "So it’s another one where you take that deep breath and go, we just can’t pull it off."
The announcement comes after the city’s most popular events like Musikfest and Celtic Classic were called off or pushed online. But the cancellations of some of the heavily attended events mean lost revenue for the city, and the hotels, restaurants and businesses struggling to make ends meet during the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Fewer people visiting and working means less earnings for Bethlehem...
"I don’t have a firm number but it is obviously a tremendous impact on not just the city of Bethlehem but across the Lehigh Valley. The restaurants, hotels, a lot of the events were talking about...lend themselves to overnight stays or weekend stays, or even longer, and they feel the impact," Evans tells PBS39 News Tonight reporter K.C. Lopez, "We’ve put off a couple of projects and a borrowing request knowing there was going to be a gap in revenue for us based on the lack of economic activity whether it be permits and inspections or the EIT, earned income tax that’s what people pay when they’re working. If there’s fewer people working inside the city, that’s typically 10-12 million dollars a year that we’ll bring in on the IET; it’s one of our larger, third or fourth largest single line item and when that slows down, that economic activity is what feeds the coffers of the city and any municipality or commonwealth. We know we’re going to see a funding gap from a revenue side."
And as the summer comes to a close many are wondering how the Christmas City and it’s typically bustling tourism season will be impacted. And if the popular Christmas Tree Lighting will eventually be cancelled too.
"That’s something that draws thousands of people out onto the Plaza the day after Thanksgiving. We get a great turnout," Evans explains, "There’s an actual program that runs along with the lighting and it’s a great kickoff for our very important Christmas season here in the city. So we’re still looking for ways to do that. Can it get done? When we look at ArtsQuest, they found a way to do Musikfest; it was different, it was virtual and they pulled it off. So there may be a way for us, a path for us to get that off the ground."
The city was able to cut costs in some areas with slashes to summer programming, some parks shut, swimming pools closed and a previous halt on construction. The complete impact of the pandemic on the city’s revenue won’t be clear until the end of the year.