SPARTA (WSIL) -- that a plan to keep the Grand American World Trapshooting Championship in Sparta was thrown out.
Now, the big financial draw for the Illinois community is
State Representative Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) says a 41 page mitigation plan was written by local officials about how the Grand American Tournament could happen in Illinois.
"Also got support from the local hospitals, had a plan for how they would have temperatures taken, agreed not to have the opening ceremonies and the closing ceremonies, and all that fell on death ears," she said.
She says without the event, local Sparta businesses could be affected.
"That's a very small town. There were hotels that were built there, there are businesses that do 50-80% of their overall business for the entire year during the Grand American," she said.
Sparta resident Cody Wilson also agrees.
"There's a lot of local businesses around here that's going to suffer from that. That's something that happens every year, brings a lot of money in, there's a lot of traffic from all over the world that comes in. That's something that all of the local businesses count on every year," he said.
He also says the event would've been safe for the community and participants.
"Everybody's outside. You're not jamming a lot of people in buildings, everybody's outside under tents, in their RVs. They can stay away from each other if they want to," he said.
The ATA Executive Committee announced Tuesday afternoon the event will now be held in Linn Creek, Missouri, some 200 miles away.
Bryant says Illinois is going to miss out on a lot of money.
"We've now had an event cancelled that brings 20-30 million dollars of revenue into this region with very little consideration at all to how it's going to affect southern Illinois," she said.
The Grand American Tournament is now scheduled to run from August 5th-15th.
