Is it too soon to talk about New Year’s Eve? Our plans are already chiseled in stone: Hit the hay around 11, wake up terrified at midnight, go back to sleep until it’s time to watch flower-covered cars on Channel 5. We’re a busy man and we don’t have time for idle celebration, especially in honor of a year that was even worse than 2016.

And, if you’re a fan of local partying, this coming New Year’s Eve on Pine Avenue will be even worse than the last one, marred as it was, by the Nov. 18 death of powerhouse soul vocalist Sharon Jones, who was to have been the Downtown Long Beach party’s headliner.

This time around, the Downtown Long Beach Business Alliance, the event’s most recent promoter in its on-again, off-again history, has yanked the plug on the celebration because a number of factors, among them, according to the DLBA’s president and CEO Kraig Kojian, is the fact that it’s become “a financial risk.”

“It hasn’t been a financial success for the last three years,” he said. “We met with stakeholders on Pine Avenue both north and south of Ocean and there wasn’t any real consensus on whether we should keep doing it.”

He noted that the free “family-friendly” New Year’s Eve event, keyed to the East Coast celebration, will still take place along the Esplanade at the foot of South Pine Avenue, from 5 to 10 p.m., with fireworks at 9 p.m.

Ron Hodges, who, with his son Riley, owns Shannon’s on Pine and its At the Top nightclub on Broadway and Pine Avenue, right in the heart of the Downtown entertainment district, isn’t among those who feel ambivalent about the loss of the New Year’s Eve bash.

“The event was great for business, how could it not be?” said Hodges. “For God’s sake, we had 12,500 people on Pine paying $30 to $50 a ticket, and most of them at least bought drinks at one of the local restaurant bars. Everytime we get something good on Pine, the DLBA moves it or closes it altogether.

“They had Funkfest on Pine, which was a great event for us, then they moved it to the Promenade. They had Thunder Thursday on Pine during the Grand Prix, and they moved that to the outlet stores. I can see spreading things around to a certain extent, but I think there’s a higher priority to bring business to Pine Avenue. And getting rid of it altogether, like the New Year’s party and saying it’s because you’re not making money doesn’t make sense.”

There are a couple of solutions, says Hodges. One is to cut down the party’s footprint. “It might not need to go all the way to Fourth Street,” he says. “And they don’t need to spend so much money. We don’t need four stages. I told Kojian he books talent that costs too much. I told him the solution is a smaller, successful event.”

At any rate, Hodges doesn’t see the fact that the DLBA doesn’t make money on the event as having any relevance at all. “I told Kojian, ‘You don’t need to make money. You need to promote business in Downtown Long Beach’.”