Bird Rockians to bring back modified ‘Taste Of’ event

By Dave Schwab

Taste of Bird Rock, the community’s signature summer festival fundraiser put on hiatis for the past two years, will be resurrected this year and served up a little more palatable.

“Taste of Bird Rock is a great event and a community-builder,” said Felicia Parker of the Bird Rock Community Council (BRCC) at the April 3 meeting of the community advisory group, which launched the event as a Bird Rock Elementary School fundraiser in 2002. “This is a good way to revitalize the (La Jolla) Boulevard. The focus isn’t going to be on the restaurants, but on a street fair with vendors coming in who won’t be competing with businesses.” Previously, Taste Of was held on a weekday evening. It was discontinued after 2009, following a successful seven-year run. The event grew too popular too soon. Unexpectedly large crowds caused complications with traffic and parking. An unforeseen safety and security issue also surfaced: public alcohol consumption.

But ultimately, Taste Of proved too appealing — and lucrative — to abandon.“Bird Stock,” a September community picnic in the park that replaced it for two years, couldn’t cut the fundraising “mustard,” so a core BRCC committee has come up with a hybridized solution.

“It’s going to be called ‘Bird Stock Taking It To The Streets,’ ” Parker said. “Instead of a Taste of Bird Rock happy hour on Thursday night, we’re going to have a daytime street fair on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. so people can enjoy dinner on the boulevard afterward in a regular setting.”

Parker added the committee is open to new ideas for adapting the event. “We’re just getting the balls rolling,” she said.

In other council action:

• Save La Jolla Post Office : Task Force member Joe LaCava exhorted residents to turn out at the U.S. Postal Service’s Thursday, April 26 public hearing at the Cuvier Club at 6 p.m. “That venue can hold 400 people and we’d like to see 400 people there,” he said.

• Community Newsletter: Council president Joe Parker urged people to get on board with compiling and distributing the group’s monthly newsletter noting ,“One great feature of BRCC is this great, little, wonderful newsletter — a little slice of America.”