STOCKTON, Calif. — The Garlic Festival will be making a new home in Stockton this year after it was canceled in Gilroy.
Tony Noceti, head for the Noceti Group which puts on the annual Asparagus Festival, confirmed the news with ABC10.
"I'm a farmer too. My biggest thing is for the farming community, people and a nonprofit groups. I looked at it, and there's garlic growing right here in the Delta. So I decided to take it on here," Noceti said.
The event's formal name and brand hasn't been released yet, but Noceti said the new garlic festival will be at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds for at least this year. He said that location will be reevaluated later on.
"The problem with that is it should be over in their region over there, where it came from. It's not going to be called the Gilroy Garlic Festival no more, but it is going to be a garlic festival. All those naming rights will be coming out here very shortly," he said.
The new festival is set for the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds on Aug. 13 and 14. Noceti said the location is due to the situation being short notice and there being an available day at the fairgrounds.
"We've all agreed with the CEO of the fairgrounds to move forward and have the garlic festival over here," he said.
Earlier in the week, the Noceti Group announced they would be hosting the event. However, the news came as a surprise to the organizers of the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
On Facebook earlier this week, the garlic festival organizers said that Stockton wasn't the successor of the event.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival board wrote they were "happy to see the enthusiasm" from the Noceti Group, but asked that they communicate directly with the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association about any ideas.
Noceti said he has tried reaching out but to no avail.
"Long story short, we've invited everybody to come over from Gilroy with us. The other story of it is we've reached out to all of the Christopher's and group over there and called their phone numbers. They're saying we're not contacting them. Well, we sent a mass email out, and I can't find nobody to talk to over there... So at the end of the day, we haven't stolen their festival. They say it was done, and we're gonna keep it going for the people," Noceti said.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival Association previously said the city was requiring that the festival have more insurance than the minimum general liability coverage of $1 million. It led to the cancelation of the event in Gilroy.
"All I'm doing is trying to keep vendors and people happy," Noceti said.
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