BY VOICE STAFF
Summerfest returned last weekend for another three -and-a-half days of music, food, vendors, and kids' activities.
An official attendance count wasn't available at press-time, but journalists present on Saturday afternoon estimated that roughly 1,500 festival-goers milled up and down Pelham Street in downtown Fonthill, spilling onto Pelham Town Square, where tables were set up for beer drinkers to enjoy live music coming from a stage set up adjacent to the former Moku's Restaurant.
This was Pelham's 8th annual such event, originally started in 2011 to entice residents back to a downtown shopping district that had been disrupted by a lengthy civic redesign.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was a surprise guest on Saturday afternoon. Read about his visit in this week's Column Six.
An informal Voice poll of attendees found that a majority, approximately seven in 10, lived outside Pelham, with the award for farthest distance travelled going to a family from Lewiston, NY.
As the festival has grown in duration and size in recent years, so has controversy surrounding its disruption of Pelham Street businesses that the event was originally designed to help.
One merchant, looking out at the passing parade of happy faces, remarked that with the opening of Pelham's new Meridian Community Centre and public space, he hoped that Summerfest 2019 would take place "just a little ways up the road on 20."
When his visitor observed that this was unlikely, he replied, "There's a new council coming. Anything's possible."
