What was becoming an annual Columbus tradition has been canceled because of construction of the Sen. Terry Brown Amphitheater.
The location where the amphitheater is being constructed — a section of The Island — is where the City of Columbus and the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau cohosted the Christmas tree bonfire in 2015 and 2016.
But the bonfire will not happen in 2017.
“We don’t have a suitable, safe site,” said city public information officer Joe Dillon.
Dillon said the site, where hundreds of live Christmas trees were once burned, is where the seating for the amphitheater will be when the project is completed in the spring, and a construction zone is not a safe place for citizens to mill about during an end-of-holiday celebration. He said the city also has concerns about burning during a drought.
The celebration began at the beginning of 2015 as a way to prevent live, discarded Christmas trees from being buried in a landfill.
Residents could drop off their trees at a site near the Riverwalk or leave them curbside for pick up. Those trees would then be burned in a large bonfire the week of New Year’s Day.
The CVB would serve hot chocolate to onlookers while Columbus Fire and Rescue control burned the trees.
“It made a very big fire,” Dillon said. “It was always a fun event.”
Nancy Carpenter, director of the CVB, said the tourism bureau and the city will work together to find a new location to burn the trees in 2018 because “it was a great way to bring…citizens together.”
“Our citizens certainly enjoyed the event,” she said.
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