On more than one occasion the lament “Every cool thing we have ever had here has been ultimately torn down” has passed my lips. Now there are some books of Phoenix then and now where can compare photos and observe some of the things I miss. For such a young city you would think the prospect of having these things hang around a while would not be so novel. Frankly, I am shocked that the Tovrea Castle is still standing. That is one thing the City actually acted with foresight on.
Well, they are up to no good again. This time it is not a point of architecture. It is a phenomenon that is on its way out for no good reason. Seems there has been some activism on the part of a few who are looking to wipe out the sidewalk scene at the monthly First Fridays events on Roosevelt Row. Of course there are regulations about every breath we take in this free country of ours and it seems that the regulations applicable to these ne’er do well street hawkers having come up once or twice over the years, were just let pass in favor of the atmosphere created by their presence.
Ironically, I strongly believe that but for the hubbub and festival like fun generated by the street-side buzz this event would have died out long ago. Now they are out to kill it and I can feel the sad lament welling up in my throat even as I write this.
The City of Phoenix is working out the bugs on licensing and corralling the street vendors. The reasons given are public safety and fair business practices. Also, the regulations do not contain an out for this event so technically they should be enforced.
These reasons are just a load of hoo-hah.
First, the public safety issue while well meaning is dopey. Somehow I have missed the reports of the major car pedestrian accidents occurring as people fall off the curb of an overcrowded street. Besides, it would be much less administratively complex and more community oriented to simply block off the streets off for a couple of hours one evening a month than it will be to chase down starving artist to get their $35 license fee and prosecute those who violate the regulation. At least one property owner has fenced his space and that is his prerogative; the exercise of those private property rights does not require the city to set up some arcane program. They approve the fence and it is done.
Second, the fairness of the business practices. Holy hypocrisy, let me count the ways this argument makes no sense:
1) But for the fun atmosphere people would not be attracted to come down to this less than pristine area at night-ever! Because they do come they learn of the galleries and are perfectly capable of returning at any time to make a serious art purchase. So rather than interfere with the “serious” gallery operations, they are actually promoting them.
2) The “art” that is offered on the street is a different art than that which is offered in the gallery. If you ask me most of what I have seen on the street and in the galleries is weird crap. But that is just my taste which is wholly irrelevant to this discussion. The fact is that there are all sorts of potential buyers and for the most part the street dude and the gallery are going to playing to different audiences as far as actual purchases are concerned.
3) Most of the gallery people are part of the buy-local movement. How much more local can you get than the man on the street?
4) Once these regulations get adopted someone is inevitably going to get screwed. With government intervention, at any level, there will be losers. Very often everyone ends up losing because the intervention in the name of some great sounding cause always follows the law of unintended consequences, which has great potential to ricochet back onto the original complainant.
Finally, they could continue to just look the other way on this. Don’t they have crimes to quell and public pools to open? If we have no budget for senior centers, how do we have the resources to pursue this silliness?
No wonder our economy is in the tank and everyone is miserable and cynical. Its fairly easy to see why every cool thing we ever had ultimately gets torn down. We’ve regulated it all right out of existence. Lots of luck First Fridays; I will remember you when.
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