BEACON FALLS — The town plans to move its annual summer festival and fireworks show downtown.
The Board of Selectmen last week voted unanimously to hold the annual Family Day, which includes a fireworks display, on North Main Street.
The event, which takes place around the July 4 holiday each year, was previously held at Pent Road Recreation Complex.
Parks and Recreation Chairman Steve Ruhl said there have been concerns about Pent Road being too small to accommodate all the traffic for the event.
“If there was ever an accident on that road, people would be trapped in that facility,” Ruhl said.
The plan is to hold the festival along a portion of North Main Street, which would allow businesses to set up booths, Ruhl said.
“We entertained the idea of bringing in food trucks and inviting our own organizations to sell their own food and wares to make it truly a town-wide event,” Ruhl said.
The setup of the event would be easy for the town since it is similar to Beacon Hose Company No. 1’s annual Firemen’s Carnival and Parade, First Selectman Christopher Bielik said.
“It is not like we are charting new territory here. We are kind of revisiting something we are familiar with,” Bielik said.
The town would also save money since it would not have to rely on buses to shuttle people back and forth from the complex on Pent Road, Ruhl said.
The fireworks would be shot off from the bridge near the intersection of Lopus and Cold Spring roads, which runs over the train tracks for the Metro North Railroad’s Waterbury branch line, Ruhl said.
“From there we don’t interfere with powerlines, we don’t interfere with the tracks, and it gives a clear line of site over the firehouse,” Ruhl said.
Both roads and the bridge would be shut down for the show, but there are other ways to access the houses on those roads, Ruhl said.
“We would have to shut down those roads, but there is access from the back sides. It wouldn’t affect anyone’s property,” Ruhl said.
Ruhl said Metro North has given the town its blessing to shoot fireworks from the bridge.
“We checked with Metro North to make sure they are OK with it. They said it was fine as long as we don’t touch their tracks. We are not going to bother their tracks,” Ruhl said.
