Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Parade allowed to keep its candy canes
HOLLYWOOD – Can you imagine a Candy Cane Parade without candy canes?
Apparently, Hollywood could not.
City Hall initially planned to ban the Christmas candy from this year’s Dec. 8 parade to keep plastic wrappers off the beach.
But on Wednesday, the day after the South Florida Sun Sentinel first reported the candy cane ban, Hollywood officials had a change of heart.
Dan Kennedy, a parade regular, was amused by the switch-aroo.
“The candy canes are back,” he said. “We were all going to protest. No protest needed now. That’s funny.”
Float organizers had been warned that all sweets wrapped in plastic — including peppermint candy canes — would be banned from the parade now that Hollywood prohibits restaurants and stores from handing out plastic straws, cups and containers east of the Intracoastal Waterway.
“Now that we are enforcing the ban on plastics, we will not be violating our own ordinance,” Hollywood spokeswoman Raelin Storey told the Sun Sentinel on Monday.
But by Wednesday, city officials were singing a different tune, saying the ban does not apply to the parade, a holiday tradition that got its start 63 years ago.
Mayor Josh Levy was relieved, saying “candy canes symbolize the Christmas season.”
The parade, one of the longest running holiday parades in the country, draws an estimated 50,000 people every year. It will
get underway on Hollywood’s Broadwalk at 7 p.m. Dec. 8, heading south from Missouri Street to Harrison Street.
To help keep litter off the beach, participants are being told to hand candy to the crowd instead of tossing it from floats.
Commissioner Peter Hernandez supported the ban on plastics but called the proposed candy cane ban ludicrous.
“I’m ecstatic they changed their minds about that,” he said Wednesday. “I think we will have much happier kids — and adults. The people who go look forward to the candy canes.”