The 2022 Gilroy Garlic Festival is canceled and perhaps indefinitely

The Gilroy Garlic Festival has been canceled this year and perhaps for the foreseeable future.

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The Gilroy Garlic festival posted an announcement on their Facebook page that said they are "frustrated and disappointed" with the cancelation. The festival has been a mainstay for Gilroy since 1979. but expenses have increased in the last few years.

"We kind of got to the point where we just didn't feel it was prudent to continue at least not for this year," Jeff Speno, President of the 2022 Gilroy Garlic Festival, told KCBS Radio.

Speno said those financial issues have several contributing factors, ranging from the coronavirus pandemic and deadly mass shooting in 2019, to a new development near the festival site and insurance.

"The festival has been struggling a little bit financially in the last several years and it’s just really gone up all the expenses," he explained.

Speno said insurance was a big factor in the cancellation. The board announced the cancelation in a letter, specifically stating the insurance requirement from the city was prohibitive.

Now that the festival has been canceled, Gilroy will have smaller events to try and raise money for the local charities. In the past, the event has raised close to $12 million for local charities each year.

"We have a few small events we're going to do this year, and hopefully we will raise some money for some of these things," he said.

In a statement shared with KCBS Radio on Saturday night, Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley said the "loss of vital adjacent parking" to a nearby housing development created "a path that was not sustainable" for the festival.

Still, Blankley was optimistic the best of the festival could reemerge in a new form.

"Their passion for garlic and the annual event they alone made so popular will continue through a series of smaller events that will keep the Gilroy Garlic Festival and its legacy alive, and upon which a future can be built, not unlike the original beginnings of our beloved Festival," Blankley wrote of festival volunteers and organizers in an email.

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Featured Image Photo Credit: Mario Tama/ Getty Images