I read this interesting blog post of DaCola friend, Jamie;
So, I live right on Phillips Avenue, and have to deal with the street closing a couple of times a year. not really a big deal, and we usually close the store early so we can enjoy ourselves too.
but….
the Hot Harley Nights event has turned into a giant douchebag-free for all- festival! and, this Wednesday, the hot summer nights ‘little brother’ clusterfuck, will be no better..
It’s time for hot harley nights to move on, and all events like them, or for the city to enforce the liquor laws already in place- namely the open container laws. the alcohol belongs in a ‘beer garden’ tent and needs to stay there, or inside of the bar you purchased your drink from. The police are overwhelmed and enforcement is impossible otherwise. minors not being carded, loss of business for the whole day, with litter, puke, and urine to greet residents and business owners in the aftermath the next day.
hot harley nights is not what i want in my neighborhood. i want a responsible, safe, retail, entertainment, residential mix for the heart of our city. i know i’m not the only one….
Jamie and her husband own a downtown business. I have heard these complaints from other DT business owners also. While I think HHN’s is a great charitable event, it does bring in some ‘D-Bags’ that have to ruin it for everyone else. But we can complain about them all we want, d-bags are here to stay, sorry to say. I do agree with moving the event to a larger space like Canaries Stadium or the fairgrounds where the drinking can be monitored. While ‘some’ DT business owners do enjoy an uptick in business, it isn’t a goldmine for them, actually more of a hassle then anything.
I would love to see the police reports from the day of the event and wonder if the hassle is worth the economic impact. JazzFest has figured it out. Keep your event contained.
Police log every call they get. Saturday night was a busy one.
All through Sioux Falls we have drunk ‘poker run’ or whatever game they are playing participants driving recklessly the days of these events. The loud obnoxious crappy bikes are not helping us. The only one who really benefits from this ridiculous display of rubber, gasoline and chrome is Diamond Jim. Why not make him move it all out to his shrine up north and / or make him rent the fairgrounds so they don’t bother our neighborhoods.
I, for one, am tired of their garbage and noise. These few who decide to drink and drive should be dealt with properly.
I am bummed to hear this is happening. I know there is always a “colorful” group of people during this event, but I guess I have never encountered any issues. We always go down if we are in town, have a couple of beers and something to eat and leave usually by 9pm. In fact, we were commenting on how neat it was that we could enjoy a beer freely – but we are also not the type of people that are ruining it for everyone else. I would hate to see it move to somewhere lame like the arena parking lot. Part of the reason we attend is because it is downtown. I think you would lose much of that luster and attendance if it becomes some big parking lot party. At least JazzFest is held in a beautiful part of town where it is enjoyable to be there, however; jazz people and HHN people are probably a little different.
You can’t please everyone. On one hand you have downtown business begging to bring more events downtown and the DTSF group bending over backwards to keep these types of things happening. Remember when Automania went to the Fairgrounds? Downtown business owners freaked and cried to have it brought back.
You want to know what the real problem is? They started moving the core of the events farther North towards Falls Park, and so some downtown businesses are too far away to benefit, so now they feel somewhat left out. Wiley’s is probably the one bar that really benefits… maybe Icon to a lesser degree along with a few others on the North end, whereas the rest do a bit more business but aren’t probably pulling in serious coinage.
What can you do? It is a huge event built around Harley’s – do you have to expect the douchebag count to swell. I think I saw more bicep tribal tattoos, Ed Hardy t-shirts, tramp stamps, and bandanas than I have seen in the other 364 days of the year combined. That is just how it goes. If you head down to Hot Summer Nights, you will probably see a lot more polo shirts with little animals on them, silver haired men, and guys wearing shirts that say “Heartbeat of America” or “Corvette” on them too. That is to be expected.
I will say this though – I don’t know what the numbers are for HHH this year, but they bring in a LOT of money for Make-A-Wish and Diamond Jim donates quite a bit (including a $15k Harley and plenty of Harley gear). Maybe I’m just not that much of a cynic, but I honestly don’t believe he does this to make money. It is one of those things they do to try and give back.
So could they police it more? Sure – but part of me feels that if you are going to sell beer right on the street out of a cooler you need to expect that people will be walking around and chucking empty beer cans on the ground. Maybe they should simply earmark some funds from the vendors to go towards cleanup the next day – because cracking down on where people hold their beer cans will probably just irk people and make them rethink their decision to come to Sioux Falls for the event.
Cops aren’t usually bothered by wealthy middle aged white guys who are trying desperately to fight off their mid life crisis by buying a hog and hanging out in parking lots. Even if they do get a bit rowdy sometimes, they’re still middle class white folks and are typically left alone.
I’m not saying they should get rid of it, just move it. I think INSIDE the Canaries stadium would be nice.
As for the DT businesses begging for this event, I don’t hear that as much as I used to. I think a lot more DT businesses are realizing these kind of events are more of a headache then worthwhile.
Can you imagine the damage a few thousand bikes and thousands of drunks would do to the turf inside the
CanariesPheasants Stadium?They could always use part of a parking lot for the bikes, but Ribfest uses a parking lot and I’ve never found that to be an ideal location. Part of the draw of downtown is being able to wander from bar to bar, maybe listen to the band for a while, then go visit some vendor booths and see what they have. Grab a bite to eat over there, grab a beer over here. You need separation to make that happen which is why the original downtown location (on the streets) was more enjoyable than the current location way on the Northern end.
For events not so heavily tied to drinking vast quantities of domestic beer I think the Fairgrounds makes a lot of sense, but for events where bar hopping seems to go hand in hand, they really need to stay downtown.
To his credit, I did see Jim Entenman downtown early (7:00 am) Sunday morning picking up litter.
Craig, I’m not saying allowing bikes into the stadium. LOL! You do realize that enthusiasts meet and talk w/o there brand of enthusiasm around them?!
Kudos to Jim Entenman for not only backing away from his veiled threat to move the event, but also to participate in the actual cleanup. HHH is key to downtown and besides the boost to bar business for a couple nights, it exposes a lot of people to what’s developed as well as what’s developing downtown. In addition, it shows that a large number of people can get in and out and the world doesn’t come to an abrupt end.
BTW…this LTE from the Argus is a glimpse into who’s coming down there and what impact they can make;
http://www.argusleader.com/proart/20120718/voices09/307180030/letter-downtown-events-bring-revenue-test-store-owner-s-patience?pagerestricted=1