Toronto’s Taste of the Danforth festival cancelled for 2022

One of Toronto's biggest street festivals has been cancelled, its organizers have announced.

One of Toronto’s biggest street festivals has been cancelled, its organizers have announced.

The Taste of the Danforth festival was scheduled to takeover Greektown between Aug. 5 and 7 after a two-year hiatus but the Danforth Business Improvement Association (BIA) has postponed its relaunch to 2023.

“The short timeline available to adapt the event to the changes in the street meant that Taste of the Danforth in 2022 was at too great a risk of not being as successful as in the past,” the BIA said in a statement.

Organizers had previously warned that patios springing up through the city’s CafeTO program and new bike lanes were eating up space used by the festival.

They said the city should temporarily roll back the infrastructure back to allow the festival to proceed.

“We have continually asked the city to remove the CaféTO curb lane patios and bike lane infrastructure for three days to allow us to host the Taste,” the Danforth BIA previously told Global News.

Before the pandemic, the BIA estimated Taste of the Danforth attracted as many as 1.6 million people during the weekends it took place.

Danforth residents and those who pour into the area from across the GTA for the festival will now have to wait until 2023 for it to return, three years after it was suspended following the onset of COVID-19.