Should the city take responsibility for the Thorold Santa Claus Parade?
As ThoroldToday reported, the organizers of the Santa Claus Parade are concerned about possible liability issues should something go wrong during the community event.
To remedy this concern, City Hall decided to increase the parade’s community grant with an extra $1,500 so that the organizers can expand their insurance coverage.
After some deliberation, the organizing committee has decided that would not resolve the issue—and brought the issue forward once again at Tuesday night’s city council meeting.
The chair of the Santa Claus Parade committee, Sebastian Soccio-Marandola, was on hand to give a short presentation detailing why it's so important for the city to take responsibility for the event.
“We’re exposing ourselves to significant amounts of personal liability as volunteers by putting on the parade,” Soccio-Marandola told council members. “We’ve looked into expanding the insurance but even though we could create a higher degree of insurance we still have a much larger liability perspective. If this was run by the city, we would be covered through the city as volunteers acting on their behalf.”
Many of the council members who were present expressed confusion as to why this has become an issue now, when it wasn’t brought up during the previous 29 years that the Thorold Santa Claus Parade took place.
“The reason it hasn’t been an issue in the past I will chalk up to ignorance,” said Soccio-Marandola. “Even on our own part, myself being part of the committee for the past four years, it was more of a lack of awareness towards what liability issues were carried, rather than them not being an issue. It’s being more informed and wanting to be protected.”
Councillor Carmen DeRose asked Soccio-Marandola how other municipalities in the region organized their parades.
“I have done some research and it seems overwhelmingly that they’re organized by the municipality,” he answered. “Sometimes they even have community partners and sponsors. I believe one of the most notable ones would be Niagara Falls because they do a pretty significant parade but they have a dedicated staff department for that.”
At the end of the presentation, council members voted to have City Hall staff draft up a report before making a decision. But with the event being less than eight months away, the matter will need to be resolved sooner rather than later.
