ATLANTA — The organizer of a free festival designed for inner-city families to experience the excitement of the World Cup says her permit was abruptly revoked, with police showing up to turn vendors and attendees away.
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Tomeka Holyfield said she spent eight weeks organizing and marketing World Legacy Fest at Rodney Cook Park in Atlanta’s Vine City community. She said the city approved a permit for the festival on June 16 and that she applied for it through Showcase Atlanta, an initiative that supports large-scale events.
“All of a sudden, Showcase Atlanta and the mayor’s office wanted this permit back,” Holyfield said. “You guys have to be the judge of why.”
She said the permit was cancelled around 8 p.m. Friday, hours before the festival was to begin Saturday morning. Holyfield aimed to connect families in Vine City neighborhoods with World Cup festivities. She planned a soccer clinic, in partnership with Google, and invited retired professional football and basketball players to attend. She also had a “Fathers on the Field” celebration planned for Father’s Day.
Holyfield said she was permitted to use the park from June 10 to July 15 as the city plays host to World Cup matches, with the three-day inaugural event scheduled for June 20-22. But on Saturday morning, vendors were packing up tents and equipment as Atlanta police looked on.
“They made all these businesses shut down; the kids had to get off the swings, the mothers had to leave the grass, the small business owners had to break down the tents that we paid for,” Holyfield said.
She said she hired 83 people and paid for insurance on the property, only for the city to “snatch it back.”
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Michael Smith, the Deputy Chief Communications Officer for Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, told Channel 2’s Bryan Mims that Holyfield never paid the festival application fees and never presented an “acceptable and valid security plan.”
He said she needed to hire off-duty Atlanta police officers or a private security company.
“The negligence and disregard for the surrounding communities’ public safety is astonishing, and the organizer should be ashamed of themselves for risking the health, safety and well-being of neighborhoods in the area,” he said in a written statement.
Carrie Salvary, board chair of the Alliance for the Activation of Cook Park, said she had been emailing with Mayor Dickens about doing whatever is necessary to get the permit application completed.
“If that’s the case, then let’s do what we have to do to get it done, so we can have our event, so we’re not disappointed,” she said.
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