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Show The Newspaper Thursday, July 29, 1982 Page A3 Don't turn the Art Festival into a sidewalk flea market TTlte wsay I see fitf. fL I t) V An expression of personal opinion on issues of interest to the local residents. by Morgan Queal "All merchants in Park City shall be granted permission for outdoor sales within 25 feet of their place of business during the Art Festival weekend." Helen Alvarez made the motion; Bob Wells seconded. When it came to a vote, the motion lost, five to zero. It was obvious to all present at the City Council meeting Thursday that Alvarez's facetious motion was an effective ef-fective way to bring home a point that retail businesses should not sell on the street along with artists and craftsmen. The issue, which seems to be ubiquitous wherever art festivals occur, oc-cur, came up this time when Jan Peterson, owner of Jan's Mountain Outfitter, asked the council for a temporary tem-porary permit that would allow him to put sale items outside his Park Avenue shop during the Aug. 7 and 8 festival. Peterson expressed his belief that the event, which draws more than 100,000 lookers and buyers each year, shouldn't benefit only those merchants on Main Street where all the activity occurs. "The entire community should gain what it can from the Art Festival. I had the opportunity to do it last year, and without making a mess," Peterson said. He told the council that his revenues from the festival weekend last year totalled some 24 percent of his entire summer business. Mayor Jack Green said Peterson received a permit at City Hall for the sidewalk sale last year, apparently by mistake. The permit Green said, was in violation of the city's own ordinance that requires all sales of merchandise to take place within an enclosed building. Alvarez said the argument that the city should make up for Peterson's lack of strategic location was "silly." Although the owner of a retail business herself, Alvarez said she is opposed to outdoor sales of this type. Councilman Tom Shsllenberger said outdoor sales could be a shot in the arm for merchants, and that the intent of the ordinance was to prevent itinerant out-of-town vendors from selling on the streets. Councilwoman Tina Lewis said sidewalk sales would create chaos on the streets during the festival, and that businesses need to realize they have to have a special license to go outside. If the Alvarez motion were approved, she said, the weekend would be a merchants' mer-chants' festival, not an art festival. Somebody else suggested that the council could not favor one merchant over another just because of the location of his business. Is it fair, Alvarez asked, for merchants mer-chants to take advantage of the crowds brought here by the festival? The whole issue was tabled so City Attorney Attor-ney Tom Clyde could come up with a legal interpretation of the ordinance. But in addressing the whole question, the council never hit on the essence of the idea that the Park City Art Festival is for artists and craftsman, crafts-man, and to allow merchants to compete for the public's discretionary dollar during that weekend totally negates the purpose of the event. First of all, those not involved with the production of the festival, either as organizers or as artists, probably don't realize the dimension of the work involved. in-volved. The event takes months of planning, organizing and carrying out, from the time applications are printed and mailed to the time the last pop can is picked up from the street. And that's to say nothing of the continuous upkeep of correspondence, mailing lists and bookkeeping. For many of the artists, both local and out-of-town, it's their one chance to get their work before the public. They spend months producing their work, then transport it to the site often at great expense and effort, pay a bundle bun-dle for the opportunity to set up a booth here and have to compete for sales among more than 200 others doing the same thing. Local restaurants can do outdoor food booths, but they also pay a substantial sub-stantial fee for that privilege and face all the hassle of setting up an outside operation, an endeavor that takes considerable con-siderable planning and labor. No, it is not fair for retail merchants to cash in on all this work and expense with bargain tables full of otherwise slow-moving merchandise. The festival is not a flea market, and a lot of energy has gone into preventing the event from becoming just that. There's no question that sidewalk sales are an effective merchandising technique. But if shop owners want or need this kind of exposure, they could easily get together and stage their own "sidewalk daze" type of event at some other time. The purpose of the Park City Art Festival is to encourage talent and creative achievement by promoting the sale of fine arts and handcrafted items, and to present Park City as a community in which this kind of cultural endeavor can thrive. Park City is a lot of other things, too, but on this particular weekend, it's the artists' turn for the limelight. ILeititeip Ttn itflne DMnttawr Letters Policy The Newspaper welcomes letters let-ters to the editor on any subject. However, we ask that those letters let-ters adhere to the following guidelines: They should be submitted to the Newspaper office at 419 Main Street, or received in the mail (P.O. Box 738), no later than noon Tuesday. They must be signed. They must not contain libelous material. We reserve the right to edit letters let-ters if they are too long for the space available, or if they contain statements which we consider unnecessarily offensive or obscene. if'i i i i ,i It t 'vs. In conclusion, we are trying to run a quality facility that pleases the most people possible. We are sorry if anyone is offended, but dealing with 30,000 people per year, not all can be totally happy. We want the community to be proud of the operation, not making apologies for the golf course. Doug Vilven PGA Professional Friends come to the rescue While the storm went on above them' Editor: We would like to publicly express our appreciation to the volunteers of the Park City Fire Department for the prompt response, competence, and efforts ef-forts to minimize property damage from smoke, water and mud which they displayed when they put out the fire at our home on Monday. We also observed a great deal of courage (or insanity) on the part of those who persisted in their efforts to put out the lightning-caused fire on the roof while the storm went on above them. Thanks again, Jane and Richard Simpson Dress code defended Editor: The Park City Golf Course has come under some criticism over our "new" dress code. Criticism is understandable understand-able any time there is a change or an attempt to upgrade. As cosmopolitan as Park City is, it seems some people have never been to another golf facility around the country. Our "dress code" is very lax by comparison. We only ask people to dress like they are playing golf: simple things like sleeved shirts, shorts that cover some of the essentials essen-tials and some kind of footwear. The old argument is always: "I'm a taxpayer and should be able to do anything I want." But the speed limit is 55 on public-owned highways, you are not allowed to camp in some public-owned parks, and we don't allow the "public" to have picnics in the middle of the third fairway. All public owned facilities have some rules we must abide by to protect the rest of the people. Editor: Recently my son and I, along with about half a dozen other motorcycle riders were out "doin' it in the dirt", when my nine-year-old Hotshot MXer unloaded and broke his arm. Needless to say I was anxious to get him medical help. Tom Spencer, Greg Moore, Jim Hansen and Rick Hovey lent their expertise ex-pertise in loading up our bikes. Tom administered a cold towel and lots of words of encouragement. We left the area and I drove to Tom Shellenberger's house. Suzanne was there. She was Florence Nightingale incarnate. She called Holy Cross, arranged all the details, put an air splint on Casey's arm, gave him a kiss and off we went to Salt Lake at 9:30 p.m. If you have to go to an emergency room, I recommend Holy Cross. All I can say is they're pros, and also express ex-press my gratitude to all those people who helped. I know "it's only our job," so the saving goes, but when you have friends like I have, no sweat. Sincerely, Paul Davin Team Vaseline, Park City Giving the people real choices Editor: I don't want to be pretentious by saying that I will save Summit County, but I feel I can help make it better by a positive example of what can be accomplished ac-complished when people cooperate and merge their energies. We in Park City have the capacity to attract people from all parts of our nation. They come here to participate, and express their diverse opinions. Listening to them and acting on their sound ideas can produce positive results. The economic survival of all of us depends on the success of diverse community groups. Those people who are long-time residents depend on the newcomers as well as the newcomers depending on them. In the upcoming campaign, it is necessary to forget the foolishness that says only ruthlessness and dishonesty succeed in the political arena. Voters need to seek representation by dedicated human beings who share their goals. I view this campaign not as a crusade, but as an opportunity to educate myself and others to these shared values. I really want to tell people what the facts are so that I can give them real choices. I believe that judgment and decisions depend on good information. My greatest responsibility respon-sibility to the people of Summit County will be to keep them well informed. Matt Alvarez Over-the-Line is spreading eastward Editor: On behalf of the members of the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club (OMBAC) and the World Championship Over-the-Line Committee, I wanted to openly express our appreciation to the Park City Parks and Recreation Department Depart-ment for once again providing OMBAC OM-BAC an opportunity to assist in the organization and operation of this years' Park City second annual Over-the-Line Tournament. As many of those who are interested in Over-the-Line are aware, OMBAC has just concluded its 29th annual World Championship over the last two weekends here in San Diego, California. Califor-nia. This year we had 785 teams compete com-pete over two weekends of play on 27 courts. Though the World Championship Champion-ship is much larger in scale than that to be held in your community, from our experience we feel the smaller tournaments tour-naments can be more enjoyable, not only for the players, but for the spectators. spec-tators. Hopefully the citizens of Park City will come out and avail themselves of an opportunity to see the game of Over-the-Line and enjoy a sporting event which in the past has been limited to beach areas where the game can be played on the sand as in the original tournament 29 years ago. In the last several years we have seen Over-the-Line adapted to grass by being introduced to schools throughout Southern California as an intermural sport at all levels of learning. As well, there are presently tournaments on grass in Las Vegas, Florida, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Min-nesota. Hopefully the Park City Tournament Tour-nament will become an annual event that the participants and public can enjoy as much as other recognized sporting activities. Yours truly, Donald S. Peterson Coordinator, World Championship Champion-ship Over-the-Line Tournament "A MEAL NOT JUST A MOUTHFUL" Great Food - Let us prove it!!! Mom's Coffee Cake Bob's Breakfast Special ,.H..'I.:1 w n w 1 f . 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