It's time to end the menace known as Taco Fest
Taco Fest organizers have repeatedly shown they shouldn’t be in charge of a child’s birthday party, let alone organizing something called “Taco Fest” in a metro area of over 1.2 million people.
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Columbus loves nothing more than herding assorted vendors and food trucks into the beautiful Genoa Park for a weekend and calling it a “festival.”
And I don’t say that as a knock on our city. Few things tickle my Ohio Brain more than standing on a road closed to motor vehicles, listening to live music, and ingesting 1,200 calories of food cooked a couple of feet off the street.
Until recently, I lived within a five-minute walk of Genoa Park and having things like the African Festival, Asian Festival, or Jazz & Ribs Festival was always a treat.
However, there is one noted exception to that annual calendar: Taco Fest, which, given that I eat more tacos than probably any other big-lipped honkey in Columbus, should be one of my favorite events of the year.
But I have never been because Taco Fest’s reputation proceeds itself, and its organizers have shown they shouldn’t be in charge of a child’s birthday party, let alone organizing something called “Taco Fest” in a metro area of over 1.2 million people.
I advised a friend about Taco Fest on Friday night (apologies for the unnecessary cursing):
It's almost impressive that Taco Fest’s organizers built this kind of reputation over six years. Organizing a festival around something as beloved and ubiquitous as tacos shouldn't be this hard.
Yet, after all these years, we only know that the hilariously named “Taco Squad” organizes the Taco Festival.
Who’s on the Taco Squad? Well, it’s hard to say because they don’t even want their names on their own website, which is usually the first sign of a massive fraud that’s about to be perpetrated on the public.

I’m admittedly cynical. So when I read something about how “entrepreneurial individuals” want to “contribute to the betterment of the community in which we operate,” I laugh at the notion they’re organizing the event out of the goodness of their heart and not to line their pockets with other people’s cash.
But maybe I’ve got that wrong! I’d gladly ask the organizers if they made their identities known. Until then, I can only go off their actions—like how they skimped on security by hiring some fake militia types in ersatz bulletproof vests.

I’m not trying to make fun of these individuals. A job is a job. But what, exactly, were these men supposed to do if—God forbid—a mass shooter descended on the packed event? Isn’t that like the baseline security question of large-scale events in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?
It’s a gamble that trained police officers will risk their lives for the public under the threat of a mass shooter. I don’t think these guys would have cleared that bar. In the end, Taco Fest’s security team couldn’t even quell teenagers armed with pocket knives who went to Genoa Park to fight other teenagers.
From u/HeadTime4270:
We were standing in line around 5:30pm and someone crashed their motorcycle in the street and it caught fire, the organizers pushed everyone to the line on the other side of the building. The line was about 30 min long and only one person was scanning tickets at the entrance.
While we were inside, someone was maced. Then as we were leaving, police and security were coming in telling everyone to go home. They were saying the festival is over today because “people can’t stop fighting.” Wild
From u/ToschePowerConverter:
I was biking the Olentangy Trail returning to my apartment downtown and heard it from the other side of the river. A bunch of teenagers on the downtown side as well were talking about grabbing their pocket knives. Seriously, why do you go to a taco festival intending to fight people instead of just being like any other normal person and enjoying tacos?
Sadly, Taco Fest organizers learned what I’ve long understood: It’s okay to discriminate against teenagers, one of the most dangerous populations of people. They don’t know what they don’t know, and it’s sadly relieving that they were only armed with pocket knives this time as opposed to unregulated handguns.
This kind of chaos—mere yards away from the police substation in Franklinton, no less—wasn’t a newsworthy event to local media outlets.
In fact, as of this writing (at roughly 11: 30 p.m. Sunday night), this singular tweet is the only coverage of the brawl that I could find:
In the middle of that picture, you’ll see more of the fake security guards with ersatz bulletproof vests strolling through the thoroughfare and offering festival-goers a false sense of security.
Thankfully, the festival’s new discriminatory policies against teenagers paid off. Unfortunately, the event still featured long lines and vendors running out of food early.
It begs the question: Why does a city like Columbus allow these charlatans to run their little scheme every year? This was Year 7, and it’s still a citywide embarrassment, especially when compared to the numerous festivals that seemingly have none of these problems.
But they’re allowed to continue operating, and Columbus seemingly has yet to run out of marks willing to fork over their hard-earned money to what, in my opinion, is a scam.
It’s not like tacos are a hard sell. It’s not like Columbus lacks the businesses to rally around a new Taco Fest with competent organizers. Why should we continue to sell the public short on what could be a premiere event to kick off festival season in Genoa Park?
I’ll be watching when next year’s festival schedule is announced. If Taco Festival, as currently operated, is allowed to return to Genoa Park—then somebody within the city bureaucracy is asleep at the wheel.
And at that point, the blame would fall on them for allowing these grifters to keep preying on a largely unaware public.
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