Noceti Group announces it will host Garlic Festival in Stockton
GILROY, Calif. (KION-TV) UPDATE MAY 6, 2022, at 10:39 a.m.-- The CEO of the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival, Tony Noceti, told KION it would host a Garlic Festival in Stockton in 2022.
Noceti said it would be held at the San Joaquin Fairground and be called the Garlic Festival.
He plans to hold the new event on August 13 and 14.
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UPDATE MAY 3, 2022, at 1:24 p.m.-- Confusion about the future of the Gilroy Garlic Festival emerged once the Noceti Group, which also hosts the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival, said it would hold the event in 2022.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival Board said it was not contacted about this passing of the torch.
"We have had no discussions with them. No one has reached out to us from them," said past Gilroy Garlic Festival President Tom Cline. "To this point, that’s nothing we ever heard of.”
The Gilroy Garlic Festival released the following statement to clarify the future of the iconic Gilroy event:
Regarding the confusion about the Gilroy Garlic Festival's potential Stockton-based revival in conjunction with Noceti Group, Stockton Dirt Track and the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival: The Gilroy Garlic Festival Association and its Board have not been contacted about this. It is not a sanctioned Gilroy Garlic Festival Association event.
Stockton is not the successor of our community's homecoming event to support our essential non-profits here in Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the World.
The board is happy to see the enthusiasm the Noceti Group has for Garlic, but asks that they communicate directly with the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association with those ideas.
Gilroy Garlic Festival
KION also reached out to the CEO of the Tony Noceti Group Inc. to clarify his group's claim about reviving the Garlic Festival. He said he was too busy with this weekend's Asparagus Festival to comment.
The San Joaquin Asparagus Festival released a statement to address its CEO's claims from this weekend:
We recently released a statement via social media regarding the closing of the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the desire to see a festival continue. This has lead to some confusion about the intentions or plans that may be underway regarding the garlic festival. Noceti Group, Inc. is a family-owned business that is committed to providing safe, family fun entertainment across California. In addition to the Stockton 99 Speedway, we also host a variety of motorsports events, concerts and special events. When the historic Stockton Asparagus Festival announced it’s closing, our family saw an opportunity to keep this important community event alive and the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival was the end result. Our announcement about the closing of the Gilroy Garlic Festival closing was a similar disheartening announcement. We are exploring all options and opportunities to keep these types of community events alive whenever possible. We are entirely focused on the 2022 San Joaquin Asparagus Festival event happening this Friday-Sunday May 6-8. We have another fantastic event planned and look forward to welcoming the community to celebrate with us. Stay tuned for future announcements regarding the garlic festival.
San Joaquin Asparagus Festival
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UPDATE MAY 2, 2022 at 4:42 a.m.-- More than a week after the Gilroy Garlic Festival Board announced the iconic festival's cancelation, a new group announced Sunday its plans to host the event this year.
The Noceti Group, which also hosts the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival, said on Facebook it would host the event in 2022.
We heard the extremely sad news that the Gilroy Garlic Festival will not be holding their annual big Garlic festival. We just couldn’t let that happen!
The Noceti Group is thrilled to announce we will be hosting the Garlic Festival this year. More details to come soon! Stay tuned!
Tony Noceti Group Inc
KION spoke with the CEO of the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival, Tony Noceti, and he said while he can't go into much detail right now, Thursday, they should announce more concrete plans.
Meanwhile, Ken Christopher, Executive Vice President of Christopher Ranch and the grandson of the Gilroy Garlic Festival's creators, released a statement on Facebook saying in part:
Regarding the confusion about the Gilroy Garlic Festival's potential Stockton-based revival: No one on behalf of the Association's Board or Christopher Ranch have been contacted. Stockton is not the successor of our community's homecoming event.
Ken Christopher, EVP Christopher Ranch
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UPDATE APRIL 28, 2022, at 4:14 p.m.-- The Mayor of Gilroy, Marie Blankley, spoke on the cancellation of the Gilroy Garlic Festival in a statement.
As a lifelong Gilroy resident (since 1964 for those who don’t know me), a proud volunteer of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, and a current and past Board member of many of the nonprofits that benefitted from its fundraising and success, it is heartbreaking to see sadness and pain manifest in accusations and mudslinging against the City of Gilroy that is ALL OF US. We ARE the City of Gilroy, and we are better than this.
Nonprofits, like the Garlic Festival Association, are run by their own Board of Directors and receive funding from their own fundraisers, donations, and grants. Their board members, and the staff they hire, are responsible for all decision-making. Their board meetings are not open to the public nor are board members elected by the public. As such, the activities of nonprofits are their own, planned and executed with resources of their own.
The City of Gilroy, like the Gilroy Unified School District and Gavilan College, is a public entity responsible to the public for any use of public spaces or other public assets. Private entities, including nonprofits, may not use public property for their own purposes without covering the associated costs and risks that make the public whole. It is for this reason that GUSD could not donate the use of their busses to the Garlic Festival Association when housing took over the private property adjacent to Christmas Hill Park. Similarly, Gavilan College was required to pass on to the Garlic Festival Association security costs, as determined by the county Sheriff, as well as insurance costs when asked to hold the festival on college property, both of which were considered prohibitive by the Association. A smaller venue proposed for Gilroy Gardens by the Garlic Festival Association also came with too high a price tag from the Gilroy Gardens Board of Directors who, under lease with the City of Gilroy, are responsible to protect the Gardens for the public. It is true that the Garlic Festival Association has been trying feverishly to find solutions they can afford to continuing the festival, but given what they can afford today, private property may be the only solution for the time being. As we navigate this sense of loss each in our own way, remember that we have the luxury of trying to rebuild, while a 6-year old, 13-year old, and 25-year old had their lives ended by a gunman who opened fire at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday, July 28, 2019. The importance of security and insurance is not determined by fear, as some have suggested. It is determined by reality, a reality that hit us in our home at our beloved festival and forever changed us all. However, it is not that tragedy that caused the demise of a 40+year festival that generated over $12 million for our local nonprofits. Rather, it was the pre-existing financial crisis and spending down of reserves that left a once robust Association now unable to pay insurance premiums for which no one otherwise would be questioning.
Marie (Patane) Blankley, CPA Gilroy Mayor
ORIGINAL STORY
The Gilroy Garlic Festival will be canceled in 2022, and organizers announced perhaps for the foreseeable future.
Since 1979 the popular event has been a staple for the community.
Due to lingering uncertainties created by the pandemic, added with "prohibitive insurance requirements" by the City of Gilroy, the festival's board decided a large gathering in Christmas Hill Park with a few smaller events was a suitable replacement.
Obviously, we are left frustrated and disappointed. Our world-renowned festival has helped showcase Gilroy and the South County for 42 years while raising many millions of dollars for local charities.
The festival is part of our heritage. Now we must ensure that it is part of our future. While it will never be the massive event of the past, a more intimate, local festival can still allow us to celebrate the community, garlic, and all it inspires.
Gilroy Garlic Festival Board
The board has planned other events like the Gilroy Garlic Festival’s 2nd annual Garlic Golf Classic, held on June 24 at the Gilroy Golf Course.
A concert with KRTY at Clos La Chance Winery is also scheduled for Jul 13.
There has not been a full Gilroy Garlic Festival since the 2019 mass shooting. Santino William Legan entered the festival grounds by cutting through a fence to avoid metal detectors. He killed three people and injured 17 others before killing himself.
The festival was canceled due to COVID-19 in 2020 and was a drive-thru event in 2021.
