Retailers will lobby tonight for closing uptown business district for “Party on Park”

by Dan McClelland

At least two members of the Park Street retail merchant community are expected to appear before the village board at its monthly meeting tonight to present solid facts why the uptown business district should again be a pedestrian mall on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Appearing with Garrett Kopp of the Birch Boys business on Cliff Ave. and Josh McLean of the Adirondack Store at Cliff and Park will be the hometown publisher, Dan McClelland who is currently the interim president of the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce. The chamber all but dissolved last fall, but Dan McClelland has hopes of creating a similar but different type of business organization in its place.

Their appearance was prompted by a call from Mayor Paul Maroun to come before the board at its April meeting to convince them why Cliff Ave. should be closed for the retail community’s “Party on Park” on the Memorial Day Saturday, where local organizations and vendors join the retailers for the street festival.

The event was launched in 2019 and held again one of the COVID years, and both times Park Street was closed for it. The retailers’ request to close Park Street was denied by the village leaders last year.

The day-long closure of that part of Park Street caused no problems for traffic through or in and around the village those times.

Cliff Ave., which is a village street, has been routinely closed for special events there in recent years, most recently during the operation of the Tupper Brewing, when it was situated there for about four years.

At the village board’s March meeting the mayor said that the two blocks of the Park St. business area won’t be closed to vehicle traffic this year, and Cliff Ave., may not either.

He asked that the retail merchants and the chamber appear in April to plead their case.

Village leaders have always been reluctant to close the Park St. blocks of the uptown business district because it is a state highway. It requires the permission of the regional Department of Transportation office in Malone to close it. That permission has come a number of times in the past, including the day-long celebration several years ago to commemorate the completion of the ambitious DOT rebuilding of the business district corridor five years ago.

It has also been closed also for at least one public event organized by Tupper Arts in the holiday season.

The mayor is likely to argue tonight that the village currently does not have enough officers (three sergeants and four uniformed officers) to direct traffic around the business district for the Memorial Day Saturday.

All Park Street area businesses are invited to attend tonight’s meeting to weigh in on the issue.

The meeting begins at 6p.m.