Our town hosts a “car cruise night” every year. They line the “old” down town with classic cars. The turn out on this day is un real. About 65,000 people turn up.
Our place is just on the edge of the very small down town area. We are slammed every year. A couple of years ago my husband and a couple of my husbands buddies decided to use our lot (which was being filled with visitors anyway) to display “hot rod” type cars. It was awesome. We had about 20 cars parked on our lot.
We sold pizzas by the slice on the corner and it was a huge hit. Our small dining room was at capacity all day.
The first year the “committee” doing the car show called the police and said the cars in our lot had not paid the 20 dollar entry fee. The police said it was private property.
Things really got ugly. We submitted a “donation” of 400 dollars to the committe to try and keep peace. We have since paid for the cars on our lot each because we have enjoyed it and it has been great for business.
Well this year they are making all the “vendors” use committe dollars purchased by the visitors the day of the event. The “vendors” have to pay for their spot to vend.
They are trying to call our slices at the corner of OUR lot a “vendor” and want us to “donate” more money and use their “dollars”
What do you guys think? Oh yeah…did I mention the only other restaurant in the “down town” is the President of the committee.
Ask for clarification from City Hall. Our town stipulates that businesses are free to operate on their own licensed property based on the Occupational Tax and business license.
That said, I hope you find a way to coexist on that whole thing. I see wherre it is a great thing for everyone, and I have seen small towns around here get pretty worked up over turf wars and trying to control existing businesses. It looks like the ‘committee’ may be overstepping their bounds a little in their enthusiasm to protect the integrity of their event. Ordinances trump event policies unless there is some City Council provision to their event that gave them over-riding authority over your license to operate your business.
City Clerk of business license department should be able to clarify legal positions so real negotiations and good people can come to solutions.
Hmmm…Sounds a little political:-) I’d say that you need to tell them that its your right to do business on your piece of your private property and they can’t do anything but throw a temper tantrum. You didn’t ask the “comittee” to throw the shin-dig so your not on the hook for their expenses.
Just do your thing and let them stew about it. Make the usual donation that you do every year and tell them that you are already contributing to their deal by providing a great business with a great product that leaves people feeling good about visiting your town for the old car rally. Call it advertising for your town:-)
I think the idea is to have the public buy $20 of “bucks” and only spend $15 with the vendors and keep $5 in profit from bucks sold but never redeemed.
Being a hothead, I’d tell them all to go pound sand and do everything in my power to disrupt their little affair (not the customers, just the committee). Then again, I’m not exactly known for playing nice with others.
You could always explain that you don’t want to give our your sales information to your competitor (which you’d be doing when you cashed in the bucks for real money).
On a side note, I would offer to you the committee will likely find the event dollars to be rather unpopular with the customers. Unless the gate is uber-restricted like a fairgrounds, the people will not like having to convert simple, convenient, all purpose CASH into the limited use currency . . . . it’s like getting passed a Canadian Quarter. Out of funny-munny and crying child wants a drink, but parent isn’t near the booth convertnig cash . . . .
The use of such tokens for purchasing is generally about tracking and recording purchasing and gathering percentages and such. In that situation, I personally would resist any demand to use their accounting and financial system to operate my business. I want to take cash, checks, credit cards and even livestock trade from customers at my whim. Trusting someone else who is not at all invested or trusted in my business to handle my revenues third hand does not make my feel warm and fuzzy.
Wife and I are all about supporting local events as much as humanly possible, and we even create/organize/direct some. What you are experiencing sounds too far for us to go personally. Wife actually said, “Tell the to go to h#ll”. That whole other restaurant thing is just too coincidental for propriety. Talk to City Hall.
Talk about cheese! What town are you in. These b@stards are way off the chain demanding you play their gaem their way just becasue the got a event going on. You business, your property, your money. Give 'em what you’ve done before and draw a line in the sand. Check to make sure you’re right and that the police aren’t coming to visit, and then use the day to market the daylights out of your business!
That whole other restaurant thing is just too coincidental for propriety. Talk to City Hall.