4th of July fireworks shows are being canceled across the country. Cautious cities are already starting to make the difficult decision to cancel fireworks and annual events celebrating Independence Day. Movie theaters are looking into trying to open their doors again by July, but even that seems up in the air at this point in time. Certain states have started to slowly open up businesses over the last few weeks, but not everything is able to be opened at this time, including major theme parks like Disneyland and Disney World.
Independence Day events have been scrapped across the country, from Redwood City, California, to Southport, North Carolina, to Ithaca, New York, and beyond. Columbia, Maryland has cancelled their fireworks show for the year, along with other large events and many more cities are starting to follow suit. At this time, people are still supposed to be practicing social distancing and avoiding crowds of ten or more people, which means a lot of people have been spending their time indoors. Traverse City, Michigan has also decided against their 4th of July festivities for the year.
Akron, Ohio’s 4th of July parade will now move to the Akron Summer’s End Festival, which is still scheduled for September 26th, 2020. The fireworks will not take place in 2020, but the city is looking at holding a larger event in 2021 to make up for it. More cities across the United States will be making their announcements over the next handful of weeks as summer approaches. This will not be welcome news to the people who have been out protesting the stay at home orders from state governors. California, Michigan, and Wisconsin are among the states where protests have been occurring regularly.
Millions of Americans get together for barbecues, beach time, lakes, rivers, and most importantly, fireworks to celebrate Independence Day each year. For many areas, it’s big day for the local economy, which means that there will be protests across the country. While some will be angry enough to protest, there are already a number of people who believe it’s simply too early to cancel the 4th of July and that local government should be looking on the bright side of things instead of the negative side.
Even if things get back to some sense of normalcy by the 4th of July, it isn’t going to be a normal event. What will a social distancing Independence Day look like? For now, that isn’t clear, but it’s going to get pretty interesting when more cities across the United States decide to cancel more events. Whatever the case may be, cities and states are going to have to start figuring things out since the 4th of July is rapidly approaching. The New Observer was one of the first to announce that US cities were starting to cancel their 4th of July events.
