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New Ordinance Limits Chairs For Canonsburg Parade

CANONSBURG (KDKA) - Placing chairs along the parade route is a Fourth of July tradition in Canonsburg, but choosing your front row seat a week ahead of time will now cost you that chair.

Last year's clutter of front row seats led the borough council to clear the streets.

A new ordinance limits placement to 48 hours before the parade.

"If we see chairs out they will be confiscated and taken to public works, and we'll treat that as abandoned property," says Mayor David Rhome.

He says it's a safety issue.

"It started out with just a few chairs and then it continued to multiply and multiply, and it got to a point where people were taking ten or fifteen chairs and roping them together, chaining them together along Main Street, to where you were unable to pass from one side of the street to the other."

Meanwhile, parade organizers have decided to shorten Pennsylvania's second largest July Fourth parade by limiting the number of units.

Former parade chairman Bill Brooks agrees that last year's three hour parade was too long.

"The same bands, the same groups, the came car groups," he says, "but after a few years, five or six years, it just got larger and larger and larger."

As for the Parade of Chairs competition, judging begins July third, at which time you will be allowed to take your seat.

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