At the City Council meeting this week there was quite the emotional discussion (that’s putting it nicely) about how long main street would be closed during Duvall Days. I would love to see Duvall have a day long festival culminating with a city dance on Main Street but I now wonder how much damage that would actually cause.
After hearing some of the public comments, I realized that this has a very large toll on local businesses. For example, if I needed a bag of dog food would I walk two blocks to the feed store and carry it back to my car or would I drive to Monroe and get it?
If I needed to get a muffler for my car would I carry it 3 blocks to my car or would I drive to Redmond and pick it up?
If I needed some groceries would I walk to Family Grocer and then carry all the bags back to my car or would I go to Safeway?
I love the idea of a day-long celebration of all that we are as Duvall, but I wonder what the costs really are. Are we really asking the local businesses to absorb the impact of our actions? Are we being selfish for asking the question? Is it just an expected part of being a business owner in town?
I don't know the answer to that question. But I would love to hear what you think.
I had not thought of this before. It is totally unfair for us to penalize a business because they are located on Main Street. I do not think that it should be expected of them to sacrifice so much because we all want to have a street dance or whetever. Not to mention how problematic it would be for all the traffic coming through town. We want to encourage them to drive through town, not make it more difficult for them.
ReplyDeleteWe should try to attract as many people as possible to Duvall during he celebration. God knows we need the economic boost.
Mike
I love the parade and excitement of Duvall Days. That being said, there really isn't a way to have this type of event without impacting somebody, and there aren't many ways through town to route traffic around something like this.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we couldn't change things up a bit and use the sports field on Big Rock Road, the High School, or other large fields to do more frequent, smaller scale events that have less impact?
I agree that part of the reduction in business is due to the street being closed, but the major cause is likely that Duvall residents are participating in the event itself. You can’t eat an elephant ear at the beach and buy a screw driver from TrueValue at the same time. To totally solve that problem, you’d need to kill Duvall days altogether. I don’t believe our residents really want that.
ReplyDeleteTim
I disagree with Tim. I think having people in town makes them more aware of what is there. But by closing the street you definitely remove all the business of anyone coming into town and all the drive in traffic as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't live in old town so after I eat my elephant ear I have two choices, go pick up what I need at the hardware store and carry whatever I buy the 4 blocks to my car or I walk to the car, drive to Monroe buy what I need walk 100 feet to my car and then go to the drive through and get a burger.
I like the partial day closure for the parade and the like, but use a little common sense and lets not cut off our town for the entire day.
Mike
I have been to some really successful street fairs where the vendors were lined along the side walks and the streets were not closed. The Bellevue fair attracts a very large crowd and all of the vendors are located in a variety of parking lots. So maybe the success of the festival might be more about the offerings than where it is located. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteTJ
I like the idea that TJ has put out. It seems to be a good compromise between the two sides. It allows the celebration to happen while not totally harming the local businesses.
ReplyDelete