Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the community, the 18th Annual Tinian Hot Pepper Festival slated for this month has been postponed to March 11-13, 2022. <\/p>\n
The Marianas Visitors Authority announced the decision yesterday after consultations with the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp, CNMI COVID-19 Task Force, and the festival\u2019s co-organizer, the Tinian Mayor\u2019s Office. <\/p>\n
\u201cDue to the rising number of COVID cases in Saipan and elsewhere, there is a concern about what a sudden influx of visitors might mean for Tinian, so we have decided to postpone the festival in hopes things will be more stable in March,\u201d said MVA managing director Priscilla M. Iakopo. \u201cCommunity safety is always the MVA\u2019s first concern at our signature events, and we are confident that postponing the festival is the right decision at this time. We encourage our community to complete their vaccination and boosters shots, if they haven\u2019t already.\u201d <\/p>\n
Refunds for ferry seats are available by visiting the MVA office in San Jose, Saipan, or Tinian. The original ticket, receipt and valid photo ID must be shown for a refund. Alternately, ticket holders may rebook for available seats for the ferry in March, with restrictions, once the new ferry schedule is determined. <\/p>\n
The festival, held at the Festival Ground in San Jose and affectionately knowns as \u201cPika Fest\u201d among locals (\u201cpika\u201d means spicy), pays homage to Tinian\u2019s small but famous \u201cdonne sali\u201d hot pepper and includes a full weekend of activities including food sales, live entertainment, competitions, arts and crafts sales, and more. <\/p>\n
For more information, contact MVA Community Projects specialist Jack Aranda at 664-3200 or email jaranda@mymarianas.com or Tinian field operations supervisor Vida Borja at 433-9365 or e-mail at vborja@mymarianas.com. (MVA)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the community, the 18th Annual Tinian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":361725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}