Mahoning Valley Forum

It's time for another downtown Youngstown festival and some of the established restaurants are concerned that their business will drop off on Thursday and Friday.

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In order to please the downtown eateries, lets just ban any kind of festival from taking place downtown ...  no festivals of any sort ... no downtown event where food would be involved. Move them all to Boardman. Wouldn't that be great? At the same time, why not just ban even events on the Fourth of July and Christmas and New Years as well.
It's strange that other communities welcome downtown events with open arms, yet here in Youngstown, there are people who want them stopped.
I thought that the whole idea about having these events downtown was to bring folks downtown to show them that it's making a comeback.
By the way, as to selling food only on weekends (Saturday and Sunday), just how many festivals per year are there that open on Thursday or Friday?

On weekdays, the festivals mostly feed downtown workers who would otherwise dine at the downtown restaurants.

Point well taken ... You might also point out the traffic flow problem around the Square on work days since there's no through traffic there when there are festivals. How are the banks and office buildings serviced when the Square is closed? And what about the two highrises in that area. Suppose there's a fire emergency and the Square is blocked off with rides and food trucks?

I can see Jay's point.. If regular downtown eateries have to either close or reduce staff during these events, it's local people feeling the economic brunt while out of town folks in their mobile food stands make money and then move on like carpetbaggers.

West and East Federal Streets were closed on Wednesday morning starting at 4:00 a.m. for this festival.

The Food Court at 20 Federal Place was practically empty today during the lunch hour.