Delray wants you to paint the shovels

Residents and business owners say rising rents are pushing small businesses off Atlantic Avenue. The concern is not abstract for people who depend on an independent shop or restaurant being there next month. It is coming from both sides of the counter. Residents value local businesses, while owners are trying to keep a lease downtown. Atlantic Avenue remains Delray's best-known commercial street. Small operators say staying there is getting harder. The next closure may be a place you assumed would always be part of the Avenue.

The DDA's free parking Wednesdays run through the end of the month and then stop. The offer lasts all day and night in city lots and garages downtown. It does not cover on-street spaces or privately owned lots. Check the sign before you walk away happy. Looking ahead, Downtown Delray Beach Restaurant Month returns September 1–30 . More than 50 restaurants, cafés and bars will run prix fixe menus and drink specials. It overlaps with the countywide Flavor promotion, so September is a good month to eat out on purpose.

The precautionary boil water notice for a stretch of NW 5th Avenue has been rescinded. It covered a long list of addresses in the 200s, from 200 A, B and C up through 245. If you live there, normal tap use resumes. You can retire the stockpot. The city listed (561) 243-7312 for questions about a specific address. Boil water notices land quietly and lift even more quietly. That is how people end up boiling water for a week longer than necessary. Consider this the all-clear.

The Delray Beach Historical Society sent a last call for its lecture on 100 years of surfing in Delray Beach and beyond. It is part of a broader lecture run that also covers fishing history. Reservations are required. For a town whose identity is tied to the water, an evening on who was riding it a century ago is a decent trade. The society is at 3 NE 1st Street . That is a short walk from the Avenue if you want to make a night of it. Reserve before it fills.

Individual tickets are now on sale for the 2027 Delray Beach Open. Fans who prefer one session over a full-tournament plan can start looking at seats. Session dates, prices and player commitments are not part of this ticket notice. For now, the useful change is the open ticket window. The event is still months away. Seat choice matters most to people with a favorite session. If that is you, the sale is now live.

Residents are pressing the city over conditions at Memorial Gardens. They describe faded headstones, cracked roads and overgrown weeds. A cemetery is one of those places nobody visits often and everyone expects to be kept. That gap is how a maintenance problem becomes personal for the families connected to it. Those families are asking for accountability rather than a one-time cleanup. That is the harder promise to keep. Their request is straightforward: restore the cemetery and maintain it with the care the people buried there deserve.