Why downtown’s longstanding New Year’s Eve Peach Drop isn’t happening this year

Thirty years after Atlanta’s inaugural New Year’s Eve Peach Drop celebration, the downtown tradition is taking some time off.

At the end of this year, for the first time since 1989, Atlanta is set to skip the Peach Drop ceremony, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told Majic 107.5/97.5 host Ryan Cameron on Tuesday.

The mammoth, 800-pound Peach made its first New Year’s Eve descent at Underground Atlanta, where the festivities rang in the new year for decades, sometimes luring more than 100,000 revelers.

But after South Carolina-based developer WRS purchased Underground, city officials opted to temporarily relocated the 2017 extravaganza to Woodruff Park.

From then, though, the Peach Drop just wasn’t the same—even after Underground hosted the event last year.

“Last year, it was great to be there, and the crowd was there, but it felt like an afterthought event, not a premier event,” Bottoms told the radio show host, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It felt we hadn’t given it the thought and consideration and resources we should give an event.”

It’s unclear when and where the massive peach might make its comeback, but Bottoms promised its return would be “bigger and better.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean Atlantans won’t be able to count down the seconds before 2020, guzzle champaign, and kiss some stranger; myriad party options are still on the table.

And, who knows; maybe this year Atlanta won’t get snubbed in the national New Year’s Day hangover ranking.