Hoboken Italian Festival Organizer Asks City Council For Fee Reduction

HOBOKEN, NJ — Hoboken's annual Italian Festival, otherwise known as the feast of the Madonna dei Martieri, began Thursday night and runs through Sunday. (See story and festival schedule here.)

At Wednesday night's City Council meeting, resident John Sciancalepore asked the council to reconsider fees it had imposed on the festival this year.

He is among several participants in non-profit groups who say that this year, the cost has suddenly increased to use city facilities.

He said that in his 30 years of involvement with the festival, the group had never had to pay as much as the city was requesting in fees this year.

"We've been here 97 years," he said. "We're just trying to pass along this tradition and we're being priced out...To try and come up with more and more fees just becomes more and more difficult."

He asked the council to reconsider next time, saying even seven or eight thousand dollars can make a big difference.

Sciancalepore said that the festival gives almost all of its proceeds back to the community, including to scholarships for Hoboken High School seniors to use for any college, and money for the Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps and other groups.

He said the festival has to run even if the rain comes and keeps attendance down. (Forecasters say there's a chance of rain and thundershowers for part of this Saturday and Sunday; major impacts from Hurricane Lee and Tropical Storm Margot wouldn't be felt until later next week.)

Sciancalepore noted that he listened to all the talk at the meeting about the city being diverse and welcoming, but the city is only welcoming "as long as you can afford the bill."

He noted that there were once five Italian festivals in Hoboken, and that other cultural and ethnic traditions had fallen by the wayside.

See more about the meeting, and links to the meeting video, here.

Find out more about the festival schedule and street closings here.