San Juan Greek Fest Organizers Scale Back Party

Organizers of the inaugural San Juan Capistrano Greek Festival will scale back their festivities from two to one days and move the venue to the church grounds on Calle Arroyo, instead of a city park.

Fr. Bill Tragus, head priest at St. Basil's in San Juan, said the city wanted too much money to rent out the Historic Town Center Park where the festival was planned.

"It wasn't feasible for the city to lower costs," Tragus said.

Tragus also told the San Juan City Council Tuesday night that the restrictive liquor permit would cut into sales, making it hard to recover costs.

He said that as a fundraiser, city restrictions that allow only beer and wine and force sales to stop two hours before the end of the event -- "during dinnertime" -- would hurt proceeds.

"This is a family event," he said. "This is not the type of event where you've got large numbers of single people drinking large quantities of alcohol."

Still, he said the event Sept. 21 at the church, 27129 Calle Arroyo, would still host Greek food, dancing and culture.

"We do plan on continuing and we invite everyone to our Greek festival," Tragus said. "We want to work with the city next year and the year after. Within two years, we will probably outgrow the area we have."