The Queen Anne, Belltown, and Downtown business people are upset that Hempfest is going to exist and are couching it in complaints about the venue.
At the request of the BBA Board, BBA President Jim Miller joined with the Downtown Seattle Association and the Uptown Alliance in a letter to the City’s Office of Economic Development requesting that the City not issue a permit to Hempfest for use of Myrtle Edwards Park unless specific conditions are met.
The letter states that the size of Hempfest at 250,000 participants has outgrown the 4.8 acres of Myrtle Edwards as a safe and appropriate venue, that customer access to nearby waterfront businesses is closed off during the festival, and that noise, traffic, and trash are a direct impact to the surrounding residential neighborhoods.
We can’t have tourists coming to one of the most vibrant areas of the city? That would be a negative? It seems overblown to me, as someone who has never been to Hempfest.
And I suppose I have been negatively impacted: I once had to bike to Ballard using a different route! The bottom line is that the city functions just fine when Hempfest is going on. And the downtown location is a draw. People from out of state can find a hotel in walking distance, for example.
Also, one of their proposals — shortening the event to one day — seems counterproductive if the goal is to not crowd the park. I assume some people are only coming for one day. If the business groups got their way, instead of some of them going on Saturday and some on Sunday, they’d all come in on the same day.
They probably just don’t like the smell that hemp people bring in.
No, I don’t mean the hemp smell.
I think the Hemp Festival is great! Carry on!
As a Belltown resident I don’t think that Hempfest goers are any more annoying than any other tourist that wander through the neighborhood. And honestly I’m not sure what businesses they think get closed down during Hempfest. I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
Cannabis is legal in this state, thank goodness! This Hempfest celebration shows that persistence pays off. Good for them!
I can’t think of a location anywhere in Seattle which has less impact on residences and business other than Myrtle Edwards Park. It is seperated from most residences and businesses by the train tracks and the bluffs, and the entrance to the park is at the far north end of the waterfront district. The park has been the site of congregations of more people before, such as for the annual fireworks display before it was consolidated at Gas Works Park.
So, the question is: would the people who complain offer the same objections if it was three day old-time gospel festival, or an art and crafts display?
Actually, they might complain about an old-time gospel music festival. Those people are notorious about not spending money, especially at the local bars, nightclubs, and high-class restaurants. A friend of mine took an Alaskan cruise featuring gospel music, and the captain cut short the cruise and headed home with the excuse of “bad weather”, but the real reason was that the people weren’t spending any money (and accompanying tips) on the voyage. So maybe in the case of Hempfest, their real complaint isn’t the crowds or the number of days – it’s that the crowds attending tend not to spend a lot of money in the area (non-local hempfest vendors supplying any needs of the crowd).
@ 5
would the people who complain offer the same objections if it was three day old-time gospel festival, or an art and crafts display?
If a quarter of a million people descended on that small area for a weekend, why, yes.
Yes, I believe there would be complaints and concerns.
And if it were that many people in town for a religious event, then it would be a whole different crowd of Seattle residents finding fault with the concept, wouldn’t it?
I have been to Hempfest, at various times over its now-long history, and I can’t go anymore. It’s literally too many people, and too crowded, for me to tolerate. Because there’s only two ways in and out of the park (unlike, say, Seattle Center), the bottlenecks for egress are especially bad. But the flip side is that those entrances are nowhere near any residential areas, and the disruption for anyone not needing to use the park itself is minimal.
The organizers for years have wanted to go to three days, not one, to try to alleviate the crowding. One day is not only a terrible idea, but would be a serious public safety issue to an exponentially larger number of people than a few unhappy merchants or Belltown residents who can’t find their usual weekend street parking.
Do the same merchants complain about, say, Bumbershoot, Gay Pride, or other large Seattle Center events which affect similar neighborhoods (Belltown & Queen Anne)? Do they propose “compromises” knowing that they’d endanger the public and/or destroy the event? Of course not.
The question answers itself. Those events do far more to enrich nearby businesses than harm them – think of the complaints of how the loss of Sonic games hurt neighborhood businesses, and consider that twenty times more people attend Hempfest than can fit into Key Arena. Methinks that, just like so many Seattleites (right, Richard Conlin?), they just don’t like having the “wrong” people in “their” neighborhood.
From 5,
Right! The last thing I want to go to is a gospel music festival! It’s hard to find a group as hypocritical as the people who listen to that kind of music and have that type of religious zealotry.
I’d think that considering that weed is legendary for giving people the “munchies”, nearby eating establishments would welcome this thing with open arms. This especially considering the hospitality industry’s having something of a rough go these days.
From 9,
Well, they’ll certainly buy a lot of Cheetos. That will be good for the stores tht sell Cheetos!
Now if it was more common for people to get the “stoned shoppies”, it might be another matter.
It is like they live in a city where stuff happens. The horror! The horror!
There are now three entrance to Myrtle Edwards, after the bridge over the tracks was completed.