Beach Party, July 4 festivities canceled

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Like most places nationwide Decatur’s summer itinerary is quietly melting away. On Tuesday the city’s official calendar showed that two venerable events, the June 19 Decatur Beach Party and the July 4 parade/concert/ fireworks have been canceled.

City Manager Andrea Arnold wasn’t immediately available for comment, but she has previously stated that city activities would get evaluated every 30 days during the pandemic.

The Beach Festival, which typically dumps over 60 tons of sand on Ponce de Leon Ave., has run annually since 1987, the city’s oldest continuous festival.

Other recent cancellations include the city’s youth baseball program which runs from late May through mid-July for T-ballers through age 12. The adult slow-pitch softball league, which had 21 teams last year and runs for roughly the same duration, hasn’t been shuttered yet. Decatur Active Living Director Greg White said this week it’s still possible the league could shift to an August through October schedule.

Decatur pools remain closed, including the indoor pool at the Oakhurst Boys and Girls Club. White says he plans to monitor Tucker, which opened its two pools over Memorial Day weekend.

Counting Oakhurst, Decatur has five pools, but that includes the Legacy Park pool, which hasn’t operated for years, and there are currently no plans for its reactivation.

Also canceled is the June 21-26 Mike Glenn’s All-Star Basketball Camp for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, celebrating its 41st anniversary next month. Though not a City of Decatur camp, it’s been run out of the Decatur Rec Center since the late 1980s and has drawn over 4,000 athletes from all over the world.

This view of storm clouds gathering was captured by Pam Williams from Interfusion Fitness, Northeast Plaza, Buford Highway, Atlanta.