COVID-19 outbreak rains on popular La Conner tulip parade

The coronavirus threat has done more than put a damper on the local economy.

It has also washed out one of La Conner’s favorite Tulip Festival highlights, the Not-So-Impromptu Tulip Parade downtown, that has been a crowd pleaser here for more than three decades.

The uniquely funky local event was to have been held in town again on Saturday afternoon. Like the rest of the Tulip Festival schedule, it was scuttled to prevent spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Parade-goers have gathered on First Street every April since the mid-1980s when the late La Conner Kiwanian Luke Long and friends from the Nile...