Beachcomber Day Celebration Tomorrow

Despite several setbacks over the past year, the Beach Comber Days Festival will be moving forward tomorrow June 14th, 2025. The festival has been held in Waldport for the past 68 years, and this year, the 69th year is the first time in history that the city has not done a proclamation for Beachcomber Days. According to the city's website the proclamation couldn’t take place because Mayor Lambert had asked that it be done sooner than the scheduled June 12 meeting.

Through their attorney, the BeachCombers had asked that the proclamation be done as soon as possible, as without it their vendors have to have a business license for the day. The vendors needed to know how to plan for the event. The cities release says that because Mayor Lambert made the ask to have a special meeting to make the beachcombers day proclamation and posted it on her social media that it created a muddy situation, that could be interpreted as being a serial meeting and therefore the city manager determined the issue of the proclamation could not be made even during the regular council meeting on the 12th.

The City posted “In today’s day and age, proclamations are really just formal letters of support, however, they do have one legal outcome in this case: Vendors participating in the event are exempted from city licensing requirements. With no proclamation, vendors would be subject to business license requirements.  As such, under the authority of the city manager as established by Waldport Municipal Code (WMC) 2.02.020(A)(1) the city shall hereby waive the license fee of itinerant merchants participating in the Waldport Beachcomber Day event on June 14th, 2025. This waiver shall apply to that day only.”

The Beachcombers committee has said they have complied with all requsted requirements to obtain the permits for the event including additional insurance from the city. Because of the continued issues with the city, the beachcombers lost one of their main sources of revenue to put on the festival, the Wednesday market. There have also been ongoing challenges with the city requiring the organization to seek legal council. Because of the continued issues, the committee was forced to reduce the festival to one day instead of 3. The committee has now legally changed its name to the Lincoln County Beachcomber Days, so there will be no confusion that Beachcombers is not a city event.

This event has been Waldport’s city celebration for 69-years. The beachcomber committee said, despite everything they are still planning a fun day June 14th. The celebration will include music all day, a car show on highway 34 in front of Eager Beaver. There will also be a vendor fair on John street in front of the Moose Lodge, and next to the fire department with over 50 vendors. The annual parade will get underway at noon. There will be a food court with over 18 vendors, kids fair at the back side of the fire department and family fun games including slug races starting at 4. The public is invited to come and enjoy a day in Waldport. For details on the days event go to their Facebook page. This annual event could not take place without the dedication of many community volunteers.