The city of Delray Beach, in Palm Beach County, Florida, announced this week that it will not host its annual St. Patrick's Day Parade or its Pride event in 2027, saying a new state law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis legally bars it from organising, funding or promoting either one. Reuters reported the announcement on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, and the city's own statement says that after reviewing the legislation, it “has determined that it is legally prohibited from organizing, funding, or promoting these events in 2027.”
Source: Reuters
The law is Florida Senate Bill 1134 (CS/CS/SB 1134), titled the Official Actions of Local Governments Act. It was filed by two Jacksonville Republicans, Senator Clay Yarborough and Representative Dean Black, signed by DeSantis in April 2026 — Attitude reported the signing date as April 22 — and it takes effect on January 1, 2027. It prohibits counties and cities from funding, promoting or taking official action on diversity, equity and inclusion programming, defined as activities designed or implemented with reference to race, colour, sex, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation, and it separately restricts public money for DEI offices and officers.
Source: City of Delray Beach
Why a St. Patrick's Day parade is on the list
The law's own text is what caught an Irish heritage parade. SB 1134 exempts holidays designated by federal law — New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas — along with state holidays, patriotic and national observances, and monuments and memorials. St. Patrick's Day is none of those: it is a celebration of Irish ethnicity, and “ethnicity” is one of the named references in the law's definition. The Pride event falls under the same definition through sexual orientation and gender identity. City lawyers reviewed the act and concluded both events sit inside the ban, not in the exemptions.
Source: Reuters
Mayor Tom Carney said on social media that the city is “working feverishly with multiple entities to ensure the 2027 St. Patrick's Day parade goes on as scheduled,” Reuters reported — a signal that the target is a privately run parade, not a court fight over the city's own role.
The private route that remains open
The cancellation is of the city's hosting, not of the events themselves. City Manager Terrence Moore has said a private sponsor could still stage the parade, and the law leaves municipalities able to issue event permits and provide public-safety services. What the city cannot do after January 1 is spend its own money organising or promoting the events, have its employees, contractors or volunteers do so on its behalf, or use grant structures that fail the law's certification rules — the act requires grant recipients to certify that public funds will not advance such initiatives and provides penalties for officials who violate it, a design DeSantis has defended as ensuring public money is not used for diversity programming. As of the announcement, neither the parade nor Pride had a confirmed private organiser or funding arrangement.
Source: Palm Beach Buzz
A wider chill across Florida
Delray Beach is the first city to attach the law to two of its best-known public celebrations — a parade dating to 1968 and a Pride event that draws visitors to its Atlantic Avenue corridor — but the pressure is statewide. Reuters noted that only last week the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim advocacy group, suspended its Florida operations after the enforcement of a separate state law giving officials power to designate groups as “terrorist organizations.” Together the two laws show how state-level rules written in Tallahassee are now reaching into what Florida cities can celebrate, fund and host — and other city attorneys reviewing the same statute are likely to reach the same reading Delray Beach did.
Source: Reuters
What happens next
SB 1134 takes effect on January 1, 2027, and the 2027 parade season is the first test: St. Patrick's Day falls in March, and Pride events follow in the summer. Between now and then, the practical race is organisational — whether a private group, business association or sponsor steps forward in Delray Beach with its own funding, permits and insurance, as the mayor's “working feverishly” comment suggests the city hopes. If no private host materialises, 2027 becomes the first year in nearly six decades without the city's parade. Other Florida cities with heritage festivals and Pride events face the same January deadline and the same choice Delray Beach has just made public.
Source: City of Delray Beach