Annual Berkeley Kite Festival canceled after 3-decade run

BERKELEY (KPIX) — For more than 30 years, the last weekend of July was reserved for the Berkeley Kite Festival — a free, annual event that drew thousands of spectators.  Now, the festival has been canceled for budgetary reasons and organizers and the public aren’t happy about it.

As a young man in 1986, Tom McAlister loved kites so much, he opened a mobile kite store called Highline Kites in the parking lot of Cesar Chavez Park next to the Berkeley Marina.

“I thought, if I’m going to try to make a living sharing my passion for kites … then I needed to do something to give back to the community,” he said.

On Sunday, the open meadow was nearly empty and, in one corner of the park, a few dozen kites flapped in the breeze — an unofficial end to the event that McAlister devoted much of his life to create.

“It breaks my heart.  It breaks my doggone heart,” said McAlister, his voice choked with emotion.

McAlister canceled the festival because the city more than tripled his permit fee to $45,000 which would have doubled the event’s budget. The city told him they could no longer subsidize the gathering by providing free services like law enforcement, firefighters and custodians.

Beverly Griffith, who came from Oakland to watch the kites, thinks that’s shortsighted.

“This is what the people need.  It’s something beautiful to look at.  We’ve been locked up for COVID for what? Two years, three years — seems like five, you know? … Come on Berkeley, get it together,” she said.

“It jumped from $10,000 to $45,000 so, 35,000 extra dollars is going to where, exactly?  That’s my question,” said Erin Kakhadze from Pittsburg.  She was upset that an event unique to Berkeley would end to save an amount of money that will barely be noticed in the city budget.

“I’m disappointed because it was a family event,” she said.  “It united the community and we’d all have the same like mind and we’d all get to share in the same joy and have these same memories.”

McAlister is hurt that the gift he has given for more than 30 years is now viewed as an expense rather than an asset to his community.

“I’m an older man now and I see the world differently,” he said. “And part of me is tired and doesn’t want to fight the fight that a project like that represents but a big part of me is sad, you know? Sad to see that it may go away forever.”

As he looked out at the people in the park, he added “But also gratified to see all these folks out here today.”

The permit fees were approved three years ago to deal with a million-dollar debt in the fund that manages the Berkeley Marina. As a result, the Fourth of July event was also canceled this year and may not return.