Montesano’s annual Festival of Lights parade, which has packed downtown Montesano every December for more than 30 years, has been canceled this year, the Montesano Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday.

“We regret to inform you that the Festival of Lights parade has been canceled for 2020,” read the statement. “We had hoped to modify our event and offer you a drive-through parade experience and the (Chamber) board has worked tirelessly over the last two months to make that happen. We did find a route that we felt was safe and had no sidewalks to avoid any gathering size restrictions.”

The statement continued, “However, that route/road is managed by multiple government agencies and we required 100% cooperation from all of them in order to host the event. In the past two weeks, we have received verbal denials from multiple departments involved in this decision. Due to this, we have no choice but to cancel the event for 2020.”