Zack Cordner/The Osider

Harbor Days. “That sucks. I thought it was next weekend.”

The Avocado Festival in Fallbrook and Vista’s Strawberry Festival each draw an estimated 100,000 guests.

On a weekend in May up to 75,000 come to the Fiesta Del Sol in Solana Beach to see two days of live music for free on a seaside stage. 

The twice-yearly Carlsbad Village Street Faire is promoted as one of the most successful street fairs in the country.

Each North County town gets an image boost and a jump in restaurant, retail and hotel business from their signature hometown event. But in each case, it’s the local chamber of commerce that actually organizes and produces those annual events. .

For 60 years Oceanside’s annual party has been Harbor Days held the third weekend of September. It began in the mid-60s to promote the newly-built marina which the locals have always called the Oceanside Harbor.

The Harbor Days most memorable event was the Nail and Sail.

Zack Cordner/The Osider

With nary a mention, Oceanside Harbor Days tradition simply disappeared this year. 

“We felt that Harbor Days had run its course in its current format,” says Scott Ashton, executive director of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce. “We wanted to take a fresh look at it.”

That “fresh look” meant the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce decided that Harbor Days just wasn’t worth the bother any more.

Ashton says that after the 2022 Harbor Days, the chamber of commerce decided it would be better to put its resources into the chamber’s leadership academy and walk away from Harbor Days.

If the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce is in fact concerned about helping local businesses, the collapse of Harbor Days seems to have done just the opposite: a giant sucking sound of disappearing sales.

Local celebrities and politicos would race each other in boats they built. Most would capsize.

Zack Cordner/The Osider

One of the oldest stores in the marina is Nana and Pops candy and ice cream shop. Employee Lonnie did not even know that this year’s Harbor Days was canceled. “I thought it was next weekend,” he said on Sunday, September 17 which would have been the second day of Harbor Days 2023. “That takes away a lot of business.”

Harbor Fish and Chips, an anchor business at the Oceanside Harbor for 50 years, took a big hit from the drop in business this year. “We were off probably 50 percent,” says employee Ernie about the decrease in business compared to the same weekend last year.

Joe’s Crab Shack, located in the triangular building that once housed the Chart House, is a 196-capacity restaurant with a panoramic view of the marina. General manager Mike Mehling says that compared to the Harbor Days weekend of last year, “We were down quite a lot…Harbor Days brought a lot of business to us.” 

When I asked if he had any thoughts about the chamber of commerce letting the annual event just peter out, Mehling responds: “I do have thoughts on that. But I won’t be sharing them. You’ll have to contact our corporate office for that.”

What is particularly upsettng to many locals who loved the Harbor Days tradition is that the event’s host, the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, hadn’t announced its cancellation even a month before.

“It was very disappointing,” says Liz Rhea who with her husband has moored a boat in the Oceanside Harbor since the 90s. She is the chairman of the Harbor and Beaches Committee, an appointed group that meets every other month in the city council chambers. She says she was “very disappointed” the Harbor Days cancellation was not disclosed at their August 21 committee meeting.

Besides being a plus for businesses in the harbor, Rhea says Harbor Days had a soul and was a good  chance for visitors to connect with Oceanside’s great resource, its harbor. “It was more than just your average street fair. It had an arts alley, it had homemade arts and crafts like homemade wooden toys and ceramic tiles with Oceanside themes. Kids would make their own pirate hats. That’s what made Oceanside Oceanside.”

Rhea says the Harbor Days most memorable event was the Nail and Sail. where local celebrities and politicos would race each other in boats they built. Most would capsize. “That was always so much fun…If they would have let us know that they didn’t want to do it anymore, all they had to do was tell us. We would have found the volunteers or groups to carry it on.”

A city employee who chose not to be named says one plan is to bring back Harbor Days as a one-day event and have it precede the harbor’s nighttime Parade of Lights event in December. That insider says the Harbor Days has been losing about 20 percent in attendance each year for the last couple of years. 

The city of Oceanside did not seem proud that its heritage maritime celebration now lay dormant after six decades. No announcement was made by the city manager or the city council at council meetings.

Joe Ravitch has been the manager of the Oceanside Harbor since May. He says he’s gotten about a dozen responses from harbor folks. “It was a mixed bag,” says Ravitch. “About half say that it was a shame that it was not coming back. The other half say that with all the extra people around down here during Harbor Days, it was just too hard to get around. They were fine with no Harbor Days.”

A lack of parking is an an increasing complaint in Oceanside.

An employee of the Lighthouse Oyster Bar who declined to be named says that Harbor Days did not necessarily help his eatery’s bottom line. He says it’s all due to a lack of parking at the harbor. “People who come to Harbor Days take up all the parking spaces.” He says Harbor Days attendees aren’t necessarily fans of his oyster bar. “We don’t see a bump in business during Harbor Days.”

Harbor manager Ravitch says he heard that Harbor Days may be returning next year but said he did not know who would be behind it. He admitted the city of Oceanside would not itself be running the event.

Ashton says that he had spoken with the Vista-based event management company Kennedy Fairs about taking over Harbor Days. Kennedy Fairs assists most of the street fairs in North County with their food, entertainment, and sponsor booths. Kennedy has been with Harbor Days for more than 10 years. Ashton says that Kennedy Fairs only decided to pass on Harbor Days in April or May.

Kennedy Fairs declined to comment for this article.

While other chambers of commerce seem more intent on helping local businesses with seminars and webinars on new technology and changing business trends, the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce seems to be focusing less on commerce. Besides its increased attention on its Oceanside Leadership Academy, Ashton says “...we also started a Rising Star Student of the Month program,” which provides scholarships. [We] expect to distribute $35,000 next Spring.”