We cannot allow your proposal to disrupt normal Harvest Homecoming procedures downtown, given that normal Harvest Homecoming procedures already disrupt everything else downtown.
-- Board of Works (body language, not actual words)
In 2012, Wick’s Pizza had an idea to stage an outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming, and to share a measure of the branding with NABC. This idea was rejected, and I took issue with it.
... It is my belief that this story illustrates an ever-widening disconnect between the understandable self-identity (not to mention preservation instinct) of the part-time Harvest Homecoming, and the re-emergence of a full-time downtown business district with objectives, needs and identities of its own.
Why is Harvest Homecoming still allowed to throw its weight around in this manner for a mere four days a year, when the best strategy of potential benefit for all the city’s residents is to nurture and build a downtown capable of throwing its weight around, and accruing dividends, every single day of the year?
Then, in 2013, the Wick's plan was approved. Once again, I took note of it.
This year Wick's can have a tent during Harvest Homecoming, but in 2012, the tail was wagging the dog.
Today in the News and Tribune, Duniel Saddeath reveals that the Board of Works has approved a request by Wick's to use the adjacent parking lot for a tent during Harvest Homecoming, and that "since Wick’s won’t be using the official logo of the festival, permission from the Harvest Homecoming committee won’t be needed in order to set up the tent."
Ironically, once booth days started in 2013 and Wick's implemented its own fest plan, the pendulum came crashing back again, this time against the eatery's solar plexus. I was moved to comment, and let's repeat my words in full.
HH? WTF.
In a reversal of course from 2012, this year Wick's Pizza was given permission by the city to turn the adjacent parking lots into a "fringe" fest venue operating during New Albany's annual Harvest Homecoming booth days.
Wick's proceeded to spend quite a lot of money for tents, bands, fencing, security, port-a-lets, and all the other little necessities required to stage four days of good quality, locally-based entertainment.
Having done so, Wick's has spent the week experiencing petty harassment from entities ranging from state fire marshals down through city police. The latter evidently made up new rules (see "department, health") governing what folks outside the fenced enclosure are permitted to see, lest the merriment within actually compel them to enter and partake.
The point, at least to me, is yet another indication of the prevailing disconnect during Harvest Homecoming. Having approved the Wick's plan, wouldn't you think that the city would choose to work with the business entity, rather than remain aloof while components of government (in effect) work against the approval? It predictably has infuriated the business and building owner. And yet the city is silent.
Of course, considering the time and effort put into the week by Wick's, most of us instinctively grasp that only one hegemonic structure in town would have any reason to be alarmed, this being Harvest Homecoming itself, which is allowed to occupy downtown for four days in October as the rest of us search for the precise commandment, specific ordinance or cocktail napkin memo enabling the invasive takeover.
Can we please be honest? Harvest Homecoming's extractive business model depends on several things: The city must bear the brunt of infrastructure expenses under a flimsy rationale of economic development -- a rationale that now actively contradicts the principle of downtown revival.
Also, money spent during Harvest Homecoming needs to be directed whenever possible to vendors licensed and approved by Harvest Homecoming, as well as to events held by the festival. If one has only a few days to make maximum bank, then encouraging money to be spent elsewhere downtown is not part of the game plan.
Consequently, given that the Wick's extravaganza in 2013 arguably has been a financial threat to Harvest Homecoming's own riverside plan (and with vastly superior beer at the pizza place) ... even a layman can grasp the nature of the tail wagging this dog. You simply will not be able to convince me that the harassment isn't coming in some part from the orangemen.
Harvest Homecoming turns a deaf ear to complaints by downtown business people, which this year better resemble the roar of jets on the tarmac. City Hall smiles benignly and seeks to avoid involvement, and the rancor multiplies as economic development effort are delineated only with regard to the industrial park, in tandem with the likes of 1Si. It's remarkably ugly behind the facades this year, but as always in a town that is terrified by the most basic discourse, the only thing for sure is that no one will be wanting to talk about it. At all. Not now, and not ever.
And that's the nature of the problem, isn't it?
In 2014, the city (and Harvest Homecoming) chose a more familiar, cleaner pre-emptive strike, denying a third request by Wick's ... and that's right, I wrote about it.
Once again, Wick's Pizza falls victim to the hegemony of the Orange Shirted Harvest Homecoming Mafia. Who runs this town, anyway?
I was told yesterday that New Albany's Board of Public Works has denied permission to Wick's Pizza for a party tent outdoors during Harvest Homecoming.
This makes three years and three differing rationales v.v. Wick's, as the establishment continues to make a good faith effort to be involved during Harvest Homecoming's booth days.
The only thing consistent about it is inconsistency, but one thing is perfectly clear: Harvest Homecoming's Orange Shirted Mafia remains the tail wagging this town's dog, and it's just plain wrong.
Harvest of honor?
Someone may wish to explain to Wick's exactly how that works.
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