OUTRAGED at Denton Mayor

eeally · April 2, 2003

I am outraged that Fry Street Fair is in Deep Ellum. The name says Fry street, and if I am not mistaken this is a place in Denton I look forward to this event every year, not for the band and mushrooms but for seeing my old pals visiting Denton and looking at the Campus and catching up on gossip. If I wanted to see panhandlers and tatoo parlors in Dallas I would go. I just moved back to Denton to raise my family and adopt a laid back way of life. But if Denton is to become Frisco like not allowing the Fair, then I may have to move...... I am soooo pissed right now!

Any one else upset? I may just run for city council....and where was our university on this issue? Does no one care? Paul Shcafer cares....so should you!

EEALLY

HoustonEagle · April 2, 2003

I knew nothing of the move until your post. My day is ruined! I look forward to making the trip each year. And I am shocked that the City of Denton would force the Fair to be relocated. Now I am just pissed! I think I will shoot a few emails over to the Denton City Council so i can vent.

MeanGreenNation · April 2, 2003

Geez calm down man. It's only being move out of denton for this year and it wasn't they mayor that made the decesion it was the city council along with the denton chamber of commerce. It was crowd controll issue. the delta lodge is still welcome to have it in denton just not at fry street anymore. national security is another reason they cant have it there anymore and that goes back to crowd control. the numbers of the fair grow every year and it's just to big now. im upset over it myself its a long time tradition but it had to be done.

Evan · April 3, 2003

It goes deeper than that. This issue was exausted on the this board last month. Basically the Delta lodge wanted the city to foot most of the bill while the Delta Lodge had beenn raking it in and did not give to charity what the said they were going to give. As far as helping Fry Street businesses, ask the owners of the bars on and around Fry Street and you will see that they are happy to see it go.

UNT96 · April 5, 2003

Evan,

I am not going to argue with you about this but you need to stop misrepresenting the truth. The bar owners are absolutely furious about this. A couple of hair salons that were polled said that they did in fact lose money a little bit on that day historically but none of them (not one) refused to signed the street shutdown petition. This just says that while the non-entertainment venues lose money that day because they either do not open or see a drop in business; those places are more than compensated by the Fair and Delta Lodge. I know that hippy that owns the hair salon next to Riprocks managed to con $500 from them two years ago. This is probably 10 times what he would normally make on a Saturday.

As far as Fry St Fair not giving back to Denton that is just BS. They might not give a substantial amount of their profits to Denton but that is because they take ALL of the risk. If it rains than they lose money, PERIOD. The city is not a partner in this ordeal and should stop acting as if they are owed something. There are close to 100 police officers that love the extra work. All sorts of businesses make money off of the fair directly and indirectly from gas stations, to hotels, to restaurants, to bars. I believe the city poll you referred to had 9 businesses that had a reduction of sales on that day. That is aout of about 35-40 which represents a very small minority. Most of all there is an even more important element and that is bringing people back to Denton to celebrate.

Do you really think that Addison even comes close to breaking even when they throw their 4th of July celebration? This is about one thing and that is Greed. It's no use to sugar coat it. Now I will drop it, sorry to jump into this again but I feel very strongly about it and the city seriously dropped the ball on this. Good thing the city does not have jurisdiction over NT because they would claim that Homecoming and the floats in the parade were one big insurance risk. Same exact situation, different colors of representatives' hair running the celebration.