Westheimer Street Festival - Recent History and Controversy

Recent History and Controversy

Frictions between the street fair and local residents were only somewhat abated by Mr. Florez's management. He had no prior experience as an event producer and a tendency to minimize the event budget wherever possible. A frequent complaint from neighborhood homeowners was a chronic lack of portable toilets (and the attendant consequences), with minimal attention to post-event clean-up running a close second. What had started out as a friendly neighborhood event held by and for residents of a relaxed and fairly bohemian community had become a bachannal crowding of thousands into a neighborhood increasingly dominated by upscale condominiums and their increasingly conservatrive inhabitants.

By the late 1990s, matters had reached the point where city council members Annise Parker and Chris Bell felt obliged to introduce a city ordinance requiring public hearings as a precondition for the issuance of a street closure permit. The ordinance became law on June 16, 1999. The last 'true' WestFest in Neartown was held on October 16 and 17, 1999. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Florez moved his event out of Neartown altogether, and for several years produced an event called "The Westheimer Street Festival in Exile" in Eleanor Tinsley Park several miles north of the original festival site. At this point, the last vestige of any similarity to the original community event was pretty well gone. Other parties beckoned however, and by 2002 the "Westheimer Street Festival in Exile" had largely run out of steam.

In 2003, Mr. Florez attempted to return his event to Neartown by unofficially piggybacking it onto the Annual Gay Pride Parade. The principal effect of this attempt was to alienate many of Mr. Florez's remaining friends in the Houston Gay and Lesbian Community and further cement opposition of local community groups to the entire idea of a neighborhood street party. Florez relocated to San Antonio in late 2004; sadly, he was murdered on June 23, 2007 by two young men at his local video store Videos Mexicanos (source - KENS-TV Channel 5) who wanted to travel to Houston for the annual Gay Pride Weekend festivities.