As hamlets and villages across Long Island prepare for Pride festivities throughout June, the once-annual Pride March and Picnic held in Sayville won’t happen for a third consecutive year. The Station Pub on Lakeland Avenue will host its third annual Sayville Pride-Fest on June 28 instead.

Sayville’s last Pride March took place in 2022, and since then, other areas, including neighboring Patchogue Pride and Babylon Pride, have drawn thousands of marchers and attendees. The Patchogue Pride Parade will take place down Main Street in Patchogue on Sunday, June 8, at noon.

While there may have been talks about organizing a parade in Sayville this year, nothing materialized according to someone close to the local Pride organizers. The Town of Islip said the town clerk never received an application for a permit this year.

Eileen Tyznar, past president and administrator at the Sayville Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber also had not heard of any parade or applications for a parade this year, but would place pride flags along Railroad Avenue and parts of Main Street that will fly for the rest of June, as they have the past few years.

For years, the Transgender Resource Center of Long Island had helped organize the annual Equality March and Pride Picnic, which began at the Sayville train station and proceeded down Railroad Avenue to Common Ground Park, where the picnic was held. Family-friendly drag performances would often take place at the event, and Sayville’s streets were adorned with Pride flags on lamp posts.

Pride marches and picnics have been on hold indefinitely in Sayville since the 2023 event’s permit to march was denied by the Town of Islip, according to the Long Island Equality March & Pride Picnic organizers.

In a May 30, 2023, Facebook post, the organizers said, “One of the largest organizations on Long Island, with much greater financial and political influence, had made an attempt to take our yearly Pride event in the town of Sayville away from us.”

According to the organizers, the requests made by the two different groups to host a Pride-related event in Sayville led the town to deny the use of Common Ground Park for the picnic and march down Railroad Avenue without explanation.

The Town of Islip said the permit application for the 2023 march and picnic “was denied due to a conflict.”

The Transgender Resource Center of Long Island stated in 2023 that it would organize another march and picnic in 2024; however, no such event took place in Sayville last year. TRCLI has not responded to a request for comment.

The organization is a nonprofit that provides a space for Long Islanders in the transgender and non-binary communities to build community alongside their friends and families.

Instead of the former march and picnic, Sayville Pride-Fest will take place at the Station Pub on June 28 at 8:30 p.m., hosted by local drag queen Annie Manildoo.

The Station Pub has been hosting Pride events every year since the Sayville parade was first cancelled, and this year will be raising money for the Walk of Fame, a drag competition featuring local drag artists competing in different categories for prizes, titles, and crowns.

Local drag artists will perform at Sayville’s Pride-Fest, and the Station Pub will provide free food. The money raised will help support the annual drag pageant, which will soon host its third annual competition.