Miami won’t have 4th of July fireworks downtown. Expect a smaller neighborhood show.
One of the largest Fourth of July fireworks displays in Miami-Dade County won’t take place this year after officials decided COVID still poses too much of a threat to open Bayfront Park to tens of thousands of visitors.
“To ensure the safety and health of our residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bayfront Park Management Trust will not be moving forward with the Fourth of July” fireworks show, Jose Solano, the Trust’s executive director, told the Miami Herald.
Solano said the event costs about $120,000 for the semi-autonomous city of Miami agency to produce, and estimated average attendance is 45,000. The annual show is also a popular draw for boaters, who anchor out in Biscayne Bay to watch the pyrotechnics.
Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, chairman of the Trust’s board, told the Herald that with about 44% of the county’s population fully vaccinated, a majority of the Trust’s board was not yet comfortable inviting a large crowd to the park.
“They felt that it was a little too early to have something so big at the park, and not to mention the expense that it would be,” Carollo said.
Bayfront Park might not host such a large-scale event until New Year’s Eve, Carollo said.
The city will hold a smaller fireworks display at Jose Marti Park on the Miami River, which Carollo noted will be visible to residents in downtown and Little Havana.
The last time Bayfront Park held a Fourth of July celebration was in 2019, when the fireworks show was cut short after a bomb scare led police to clear out a nearby road. Authorities halted the program, and a bomb squad exploded an abandoned suitcase, which had no bomb.
The 2020 event was one of several city-sponsored gatherings that was canceled when the novel coronavirus led to restrictions on large-scale events and other commercial limitations.
This story was originally published June 1, 2021 at 5:58 PM.
