Local Businesses
have petition the City Council, this Wednesday evening, to not allow the beer fest to occur. Which will
be forcing the businesses to close down, from Friday evening through Sunday this
coming September 13-15th.
Many of the
downtown businesses will lose their normal weekend business activity if this
event is allowed to occur.
fs
Why do they have to close??
ReplyDeleteMaybe they don't want a bunch of drunken beer drinkers stumbling into their businesses?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous has left a new comment on your post "OKtoberfest Meets with Downtown Businesses Opposit...":
ReplyDeleteWhy do they have to close??
Because there will be no parking allowed for their customers throughout the downtown streets
Who wants drunks puking in their businesses?
ReplyDeleteBetter they drink all that beer on the street and then get in their cars and try to drive home totally sh1tfaced! Makes me wonder why the city would be backing an event that encourages massive drunk driving?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the theme for this event, guzzle beer by the gallon then drive your car?
Amatos are never happy about anything. They always complain. Just ask Tim Stewart, he's always saying what a pain in the but they were with parking. And when the city gave them whatever they were asking for they'd immediately complain about anything else.
ReplyDeleteThe downtown business owners don't understand a basic premise of business. More customers means more money. This event will attract thousands of people. You don't think kids attending with their parents will want to go to Amatos? Or get an ice cream. Or go into Mitch's place? The Polish businesses made a killing on the Little Poland festival. Even with outside vendors, you couldn't get a seat in a restaurant and the stores were packed. There is a reason why Little Poland is thriving and downtown is struggling. Basic business sense.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you and I give a little more credit to the citizens in America... just because they have beer available, doesn't make it a chaos place...
DeleteAZ
Does that mean they will be selling beer to the kids too? It is hard to believe that Liquor Control would license the entire downtown district for open sales of booze with little or no control over who is buying it or who they are buying it for--especially when if you go into a restaurant the wait staff must serve you at your table to verify it is you who is going to be drinking it. From the limited information made available by the mayor's secret dealings on this, I get a picture that you will be able to go up to a booth and buy as many as you want and dole them out to whomever you want whether or not they are over 21 or already intoxicated, and then you will have a crowd of 100's or even 1,000's of potentially drunken people roaming the streets of downtown until they all get in their cars and drive home.
ReplyDeletefunnels for everyone!
ReplyDeleteHow many drinkers plan to bring their kids? If I'm going to an Oktoberfest, my first thought is oh lets go to Amato's. I don't blame Amato's for feeling this way.
ReplyDeleteOh ya, let me get drunk then go buy toys.
ReplyDeleteYou have to be a 2 headed idiot to think that a bunch of drunks are going to guzzle beer by the gallon and then want to go buy toys.
Sounds like something the yo-yo in the mayor's office would come up with.
He sounds more like a dumbbell than a yo-yo!
ReplyDeleteWhat does the town get out of all this? They will no doubt have to pay tens of thousands in police public works and fire overtime and all for interfering with tax paying businesses' ability to stay open for 4 days making it even harder for the area business to pay the taxes that O'Brien didn't raise even though they went up substantially.
ReplyDeleteYou see the event is mostly about trying to win votes and prove to people Mr. O’Brien actually did something. That is why events are happening in October and not the rest of the year:
ReplyDeleteThey must be serving commie cool-aid instead of beer!
While this paper believes events such as the Oktoberfest downtown are good for the City, we are not in favor of the way it was done.
ReplyDeleteThe New Britain Downtown District and local businesses were kept in the dark and the planning of the event was done without them.
In order for any event to be successful those that it will affect need to be included. Mayor Tim O’Brien felt it was unnecessary to include the Downtown District because he wanted the event to happen one way or another.
You see the event is mostly about trying to win votes and prove to people Mr. O’Brien actually did something. That is why events are happening in October and not the rest of the year. That is why the Mayor chose to run the Halloween event instead of this paper that began it.
When this paper planned Halloween in 2012, the first thing we did was tell the local businesses. If they did not approve, it would not have taken place. Since that event was a success Mr. O’Brien wants to use that and anything else close to the election to help him win it.
This administration is not for transparency. From day one it has been about being re-elected. Expect to see more groups and people come forward with complaints of what this Mayor is doing to be elected.
Unfortunately, it puts a bad taste around events like Oktoberfest.
Commentary by Robin Vinci
" Why disrupt downtown New Britain for three days?
ReplyDeleteSuggestion :
Get permission from whoever owns it to have the Octoberfest at the same field where they are having The Dozynki festival this weekend !! No downtown businesses are disrupted, the Police Station is not compromised, there is plenty of parking, a pavilion for entertainment. a lot of room for vendors of all kinds, everybody is happy, etc., etc. Case closed!! Don 't get City Hall involved or you will screw up the whole idea. Let the beer vendors pay Nick Agostino.
How do you make en elephant? You start off to create a mouse and put a City Hall Committee in charge of doing it. "
" Why disrupt downtown New Britain for three days?
ReplyDeleteSuggestion :
Get permission from whoever owns it to have the Octoberfest at the same field where they are having The Dozynki festival this weekend !! No downtown businesses are disrupted, the Police Station is not compromised, there is plenty of parking, a pavilion for entertainment. a lot of room for vendors of all kinds, everybody is happy, etc., etc. Case closed!! Don 't get City Hall involved or you will screw up the whole idea. Let the beer vendors pay Nick Agostino.
How do you make en elephant? You start off to create a mouse and put a City Hall Committee in charge of doing it. "
What happened to the promise of the most transparent administration ever?
ReplyDeleteVirtually everything this administration does is done in secret.
I CALL ON MIKE TRUEWORTHY TO PROPOSE A RESOLUTION ABOLISHING THE DOWNTOWN DISTRICT. THEY ARE CLEARLY NOT ACTING IN OUR INTEREST. STATE LAW PROVIDES THE RIGHT OF THE COUNCIL TO ADOPT OR ABOLISH. THEY SHOULD ABOLISH AND START A NEW>
ReplyDeleteAnd to Ms. Vinci's comment:
"the event is mostly about trying to win votes and prove to people Mr. O’Brien actually did something. That is why events are happening in October and not the rest of the year"...Ms. Vinci, you sound moronic!!! You're accusing the mayor of having OCTOBERFEST in October rather than another month?@?! What month should they have held Octoberfest? Decmber?
Dates for this Oktoberfest are actually Sept 13-15, according to the Herald.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea, but also believe that it would be better suited to some where like Falcon's Field. Any event being planned for Downtown should be done with the input of business owners. I think the street closings have been scaled back, but there are other businesses in the downtown area (Professional offices, etc) that could be adversely affected by street closings, especially on a Friday. The Polish Festival was great, but it was held on a Sunday (when offices are closed) and I'm sure the Polonia Business Association worked with the retail businesses and restaurants in their planning. The fact that the Downtown District, whose members pay an additional tax to the city, was not integral in the planning was/is a problem. City Hall is taking over their function while pocketing their tax dollars.
Catherine Cheney
And to Ms. Vinci's comment:
ReplyDelete"the event is mostly about trying to win votes and prove to people Mr. O’Brien actually did something. That is why events are happening in October and not the rest of the year"...Ms. Vinci, you sound moronic!!! You're accusing the mayor of having OCTOBERFEST in October rather than another month?@?! What month should they have held Octoberfest? Decmber?
APPARENTLY BY YOUR OWN RANTS AND RAVES YOU ARE TOO MUCH OF A LIBERAL KOOL-AID DRINKER TO REALIZE YOU'RE MESSIAH O'BRIEN IS JUST TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND AN OCTOBER FEST IS SUPPOSED TO BE HELD IN OCTOBER SINCE IT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER. I DOUBT HE COULD READ A CALENDAR WITHOUT HELP ANYWAY.
Personally I am so happy to have something like this in the works. Downtown is normally pretty dead and my husband I were talking about how great the car show was. This event may bring in even more people.
ReplyDeleteNew Britain is lucky to have a restaurant like the East Side that is such a draw from outside our city.
And to obviously Phil Sherwood or Mrs. O'brien's comments, why didn't O'brien plan something in New Britain all year long? Why so close to election. Because Ms. Vinci is right. It is about getting votes!
ReplyDeleteMs. Vinci at least puts her name to what she writes. Many of you talk only anonymously.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Mothers Against Drunk Driving would think about such a public display of beer guzzling?
ReplyDeleteThis should be a hugely positive thing for New Britain.
ReplyDeleteBut instead, simply because Tim O'Brien is utterly inept and unqualified for the role he is in. It's turned into a huge debacle.
This is what happens when a guy with absolutely no idea how to run a business, manage, or provide measurable results gets elected because of nonsense party politics.
If the D party in New Britain had even a sliver of ethical beliefs, they would never have allowed such a mind-numbingly unqualified candidate onto their ticket to begin with.
The worst part of this entire "experiment" is that regardless of how unbelievable it is that he actually is the mayor - our Common Council had rubber stamped everything he has put in front of them.
We will be paying back the +$70 MILLION in bonding, the +$15 MILLION stolen from the water dept., the $8MILLION added to the budget, and the hundreds of thousands given away to cronies, LONG after he is back doing nothing on some nondescript committees somewhere.
This is what happens when a guy with absolutely no idea how to run a business, manage, or provide measurable results gets elected because of nonsense party politics..............................
ReplyDeletebut was he good at bagging groceries?
Actually, he wasn't good at bagging groceries either!
ReplyDeletecouldn't remember not to put the potatoes on top of the bread?
ReplyDelete