“Operating Nights of Lights for two full months may not be sustainable”
By Noah Hertz JAXToday
St. Augustine’s popular Nights of Lights brings people from all over the world to admire the historic city’s displays of holiday lighting. But after a particularly busy holiday season, city leaders say the pace may not be sustainable.
“We’re dangerously close to overtourism,” Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said during a discussion about Nights of Lights on Monday.
Official data isn’t available yet, but a spokesperson for the St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & The Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau confirmed that hotels in the area did “really well.”
City leaders observed heavier traffic than in past years.
“It was gridlock,” Sikes-Kline said. “Usually, you’ve got gridlock that moves, there’s moving cars. … This did not move.”
City officials want to see Nights of Lights become an event that is less disruptive to residents and local businesses.
“It’s not Disney World,” Sikes-Kline said. “People really live here. We have to be able to live here.”
In 2024, St. Johns County gave St. Augustine $100,000 (up from $60,000 the previous year) to help fund Nights of Lights, and another $200,000 (up from $150,000 the previous year) to fund the shuttles the city uses to reduce the number of cars on the road.
That’s in addition to the millions of dollars that St. Johns County pays to help market St. Augustine as a destination, including specific marketing around Nights of Lights.
But city officials think it might not be enough, especially with the area’s growing population and the event’s growing popularity.
“I want to see the county step up and stop spending all the money on trying to get tourists here and help us,” City Commissioner Barbara Blonder said. “Help the city with the cost that the taxpayers are shouldering.”
If St. Augustine can’t get additional support from the county or the business community, Blonder said operating Nights of Lights for two full months may not be sustainable.
“It’s great for the businesses — that’s great — I am definitely supportive of businesses, but not at the cost of our taxpayers who are footing the bill, and not at the cost of our quality of life,” Blonder said. “If we do not get help, significant help, for the actual cost of supporting the infrastructure … I don’t think we can sustain it.”
City officials are expected to receive a report from the city manager about this year’s Nights of Lights in February after the display is officially over. Nights of Lights runs through Jan. 26.
The leaders of St Augustine sold the city out years ago for increased tourism. The goal for “Heads in Beds” to increase revenue to hotels, restaurants, stores and tourist attractions is now beyond what is tolerable. The beauty of Nights of Lights has been replaced with traffic gridlock, packed streets for walking, hours wait for restaurants and NO parking.
Quality of life for residents has been replaced with quantity of unfettered tourism. It takes its toll on the city, the residents and it costs a lot of money to put on this almost 2 plus month show every year. The high tourist tax that is collected for every hotel and condo stay goes directly to encouraging more tourism through advertising and grants to organizations for more programs to draw more tourists from outside of Florida. In a way, it’s a recycling of tourist money that is now resulting in overtourism that is greatly affecting this wonderful jewel of a city. Hope the Mayor can put the tourist genie back in the bottle but that will be difficult….
Pardon my use of Siri, I am a resident, not a residence
I commend MS Sykes-Klein for her realization that the event has completely overrun the city and its citizens. However, she is about four years too late. I have always thought it a bit insane for the county to spend millions advertising Saint Augustine and the Nights of Lights only to see the city become what it is: a gridlock of cars and people. As a resident of Saint Augustine for 30 years, it is appalling to me what has become our little city. I am among many residence of Anastasia Island who speak of “crossing the ditch “ as something to be done only when absolutely necessary.