The cars have been kicked off Kelowna’s Bernard Avenue to make room for the annual Downtown Kelowna Association Block Party.
Saturday at 11 a.m. the festivities began by closing two extra blocks of Bernard Avenue to vehicular traffic to accommodate the more than 15,000 people expected to attend. For the day Bernard Avenue was closed from the Sails on the waterfront to St. Paul Street.
“It’s important because it’s a community-building event, it also gets people downtown so that they can move around back and forth freely in the middle of the street, see some vendors they wouldn’t usually see and then get inside to cool down with our restaurants and our businesses,” said Mark Burley, executive director of the Downtown Kelowna Association.
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At the intersection of Pandosy Street and Bernard Avenue kids and the young at heart could try their hand at riding a motorized panda.
“It’s just like a dirt bike, you pull the throttle and you just go,” said Rob Souch who owns Happy Panda Rides.
The day of fun for the whole family encourages people to come to Kelowna’s downtown core and support local businesses.
“We are the second fastest growing downtown in the country and that has to do with not only the addition of businesses and new ones that are turning over but we also have all the new residential that’s here,” said Burley.
When the clock strikes 5 p.m. the block party closes for another year, leaving only the blocks from Water Street to Pandosy Street of Bernard Avenue closed for the rest of the summer.