
Town Becomes a Beer Ad, but Residents Don’t Feel Like a Party - smacktoward
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/us/colorado-town-prepares-to-become-beer-ad.html
======
makewavesnotwar
I don't blame the people of the town for being upset; "Whatever, USA" is a
pretty offensive name as it completely negates the people, the culture and the
history of the town.

For instance, if someone called NYC "Whatever, USA": you would probably think
them ignorant as even if you've never been to the city, you likely know at
least some of the things that give the city its unique identity.

For the people who know and love their precious hometown, to sit by and watch
while it is stripped of its identity and rebranded as "Whatever" must be a
tough pill to swallow even if it is only temporary and brings in revenue.

The other obvious issue is that the contract was undertaken unilaterally by
the town government in secret. For the mayor to take on a contract that
affects all residents in such a major way as road closures for street
painting, and shutting down the town for a multi-day rager without consulting
the people seems incredibly careless, especially considering that there's no
real way to hide such an event.

Projects like this can at least be introduced to the community in the town
hall for discussion before obligating the town to a contract to avoid secrecy
as generally (at least in terms of governmental operations): if you have to
hide what you're doing, it's likely something you shouldn't be doing.

For now, many of the people of the town have to deal with an event they didn't
want for money that will be spent on a "yet-to-be-determined capital project"
that will likely be decided on in the same unilateral fashion as the town was
decided to be prostituted for a party by someone who was okay with labeling
the town "Whatever" in secret.

From my understanding, people generally elect officials to represent and hold
true to the town's identity and increase the welfare of the people of the
community, not rebrand it as "Whatever, USA" and annoy the people of the town
because it makes some money for a potential future project.

With the actions of the town officials, I would say the residents are rightly
pissed. Money is not the only measure of utility.

~~~
gojomo
While there are enough unhappy people to quote in an article, there's no
evidence a majority of the townspeople object, either as a superficial gut
reaction, or after deliberate consideration of all costs and benefits.

For the duration of the current officeholders' terms, decisions about such use
of public space have been delegated to them. Unless those officeholders have
done something corrupt or illegal – which does not seem to be alleged – then
the residents can choose new management at the next election.

I kind of doubt they will. As long as cleanup is thorough, the lingering
impact is all good: money and more visitors next high season. Even the
opportunity to have had something to "rail against", and get quoted in the
NYTimes as a rural local, was a positive. (I wouldn't even rule out the
possibility that locals have exaggerated their respective positions to obtain
marginally more media coverage about the "real town" from the event.)

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seanalltogether
These mountain town always suffer from having split identities. On the one
hand you have people who desperately look to outsiders/tourists to keep
themselves in business. On the other hand you have a group of people that
despise all these outsiders for clogging up traffic and stomping all over
everything.

The problem is that locals fall in love with all the amenities provided by
tourist dollars, and hate when they're standing in line in front of them.

~~~
x0x0
I snowboard every chance I get, and this hits the nail on the head. You always
get a bunch of idiots that refuse to understand that they live in a resort
town, and that the town only exists because of all the tourist dollars. It's
the tradeoff you have to understand if you're going to live there. In the
article, the town is getting a "donation" of 5% of their annual budget in
order to let budweiser turn it into a frathouse for 3 days. It's probably a
good trade considering what towns like that are and how they're perpetually
cash starved.

You always get the pretentious rich jerks who retire there and think it's
Marthas Vineyard, not a town full of skibums whose goals are pot, pbr, and 120
days of snowboarding a year (and don't get me wrong, no hate for skibums; I'm
jealous...)

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the_cat_kittles
i absolutely hate how companies are able to enable this kind of idiotic
partying and general disrespect for the people and things around them. so they
are paying some money to the town- i would much rather not get paid than have
a bunch of dumbass college kids getting stupid drunk and not giving a fuck
where they are, all while making a commercial to enable more people to follow
suit.

getting drunk and partying is fun, but this kind of thing really seems to
cater to the lowest common denominator and ignorance. not to mention the deal
was made in secret- i think the citizens of the town have every right to be
mad.

~~~
coldcode
I wonder if the town Chief Wiggum is also being paid to look the other way
when 1000 drunk people destroy the place.

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valar_m
I'd like to see a First Amendment challenge to this. From the article:

> _[A]ccess to the main street will be restricted to people with company-
> issued bracelets_

Justice White, for the Court:

 _In places which, by long tradition or by government fiat, have been devoted
to assembly and debate, the rights of the State to limit expressive activity
are sharply circumscribed. At one end of the spectrum are streets and parks,
which "have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and,
time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating
thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions."_ [0]

Restrictions based on time, place, and manner must satisfy three requirements
[1]:

1\. Content neutral

2\. Narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest

3\. Leave open ample alternative channels of communication

The article is short in details, but #2 would seem to be the death blow. The
broad, sweeping nature of a blanket restriction of access to the town's main
thoroughfare is highly suspect.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, the government is going to have
to show how a three-day drunk fest meets the definition of a "significant
government interest."

[0]Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983).

[1] _Id._

~~~
toddrew
Music festivals and other events are held in public spaces all the time. By
the look of the town, the detour around the shut down areas might take a whole
extra 20 seconds.

~~~
valar_m
You're missing the highly relevant, distinguishing factor:

 _At one end of the spectrum are streets and parks_

It's the main street of the town, not an open field or fairgrounds.

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snowwrestler
I can't believe it's Crested Butte. That blows my mind.

For folks not aware, the bulk of Crested Butte's tourism industry depends on
its reputation as a less-well-known, authentic, unspoiled, laid-back "real
mountain town" that has not been overly commercialized. That is the only
reason that people with money choose to go there instead of better-known and
better-appointed towns like Aspen, Vail, Telluride, etc.

This stupid event gives that reputation a huge black eye. It seems obvious
that the town leadership has no idea how thin the thread is that their tourism
dollars hang on.

To be clear: the skier bums and lifer mountain bikers and kayakers will still
come to Crested Butte because it's got great outdoor resources, and is much
less expensive than the fancy Colorado towns. But the well-off tourists, who
are the backbone of any tourism economy, might not.

 _Reputation matters._ Imagine if Linus Torvalds took a million dollars to
appear in a Microsoft ad. He couldn't just go back to running the Linux kernel
the same way, even if he wanted to.

~~~
jlarocco
Agreed.

It's offensive they did this to any town. It's especially offensive they did
it to crested butte, because it flies in the face of what the place is all
about.

I was really close to moving there a couple years ago, and I still might one
day, but an event like this would have made me furious.

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mrinterweb
I went to highschool in Half.com (Halfway, Oregon). The town has reverted back
to calling its self Halfway, but many of the residents did not like the town's
decision to sell out, as could be easily gleaned when seeing the bullet
riddled "Welcome to Half.com" sign on the highway.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway,_Oregon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway,_Oregon)

------
DigitalSea
I can see this from both angles. The first angle is, the mayor has gone ahead
and from what I gather from the story, secretly withheld the agreement and
failed to inform the locals or even let them have a say/voice their opinion.
People just want to be heard, and when local politicians go making decisions
that affect the town (however big or small) without consulting the
inhabitants, of course people are going to be angry about this.

Then you can see it from the other angle. The $500k sum is just a fee for the
company to have the right to have the party, think of it as a leasing fee.
When you factor in all of the other things like accommodation, food, labour,
cabling, generators, lighting and the fact 1000 people flocking to local
stores, staff, law enforcement/security and then the clean-up, presumably that
is going to significantly boost the local economy quite a lot.

If the party is properly controlled and constrained within the designated
street, is it really hurting anyone? Financially hotels/motels are going to be
the biggest winners and probably rarely experience an influx of 1000+ visitors
at once staying for 3 days. Aside from the fact a company that produces
alcoholic beverages is throwing a party and potentially sending the wrong
message to some, put aside the moral indifference and it's just a controlled
party being attended by young young young.

The inhabitants against the party need to understand they live in a town most
likely being kept alive by tourists anyway. There will always be resistance to
any kind of change (however temporary), especially those who spent a lot of
money moving there (investors and retirees especially). The drinking and
partying is already happening (albeit on a small scale) and like pointed out,
will give the local economy a significant boost and could potentially result
in some of the attendees coming to the party liking the place and coming back
for a holiday at a later time. This party has also generated a lot of
publicity for the town, people that haven't heard of the place before might be
more inclined to visit now that they've heard of it.

I can see the good and bad, and unless I am just being ignorant and not seeing
the bigger picture, it seems the good outweighs the bad in this situation.

------
forkandwait
Seems like this is a golden opportunity for a consortium of microbreweries to
run youtube ad campaigns:

"At Hood River | Deschutes | Ninkasi | Whatever (haha), we care about our
community, starting here in 19XX, investing yyyy in local infrastructure,
employing zzz, supporting aaa at schools, etc. This is our home, NOT a
whatever place for us, and we think you care your about home too. So support
microbrews, the NOT whatever beer."

(EDIT: "youtube")

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toddrew
It's a three day event with an estimated boost of $2,000,000 to the local
economy. Boo hoo. Suck it up and enjoy the music.

~~~
toddrew
For those of you downvoting, do you really think that a 3 day event caused any
real impact to the quality of life of the people in this town?

What boost of quality of life did the event bring to those in the town that
enjoy things like music and alcohol?

Boost of quality of life for those that enjoyed it + $2,000,000 economic boost
- 3 day interruption to those that didn't enjoy it = ?

~~~
mcintyre1994
Where's this $2m coming from? The article says the company are paying
("donating") $500,000 and that drinks will be unlimited - which presumably
means provided by the company?

Will the 1000 party goers spend $1.5m? $1500 each at a 3 day party where
you're not paying for drink sounds really high.

~~~
HNaTTY
Likely from all the preparations, and hiring the local restaurants/bars/etc on
the main drag. Who is going to clean up all the blue paint and throwup? Local
guys I guess.

------
wcummings
>CRESTED BUTTE, Colo.

And _this_ is what they're upset about?

Hey, it could be worse, a town in TX changed their name to Dish for free
cable:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dish,_Texas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dish,_Texas)

------
rocky1138
There is nothing worse than the cynicism of a small-town mindset. So many
great opportunities are missed by people who are unwilling to take a chance.
The town I grew up in is like this and, after moving away for nearly a decade
and seeing what the real world is like, I find it excruciatingly difficult to
go back for a weekend visit.

The mayor is spot-on when he says “It is not every day that you have a company
that comes in and says: ‘We want to donate half a million to your community.
We want to hire your locals. We want to work with your bars and restaurants,’
”

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Holding on to your values even when offered money to abandon them is cynicism
now?

~~~
jqm
The mayor wears flip flops. I'm guessing the "values" of a few wet blankets
don't reflect the values of the general population.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
I'm not going to make uniformed guesses about numbers or throw around
insulting names. And if it was me then maybe I'd cynically take the money and
grit my teeth at the poor-quality mass-produced beer on advertisement for a
few days. But there's still something to admire about saying "no" to all that.

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jqm
Absolutely awful! (That I didn't get invited...)

I don't get what the big deal is. It's not like they are taking the town over
permanently. Suck it up, take the money, go inside for a few days if it
bothers you. Or go on vacation and come back when it's over. Thing will be
back to normal soon enough and the town will have more money.

(Or, buy a funny hat and go drink beer in the street. That's what I'd do.)

~~~
valar_m
Except you're not allowed to go drink beer in the street:

 _access to the main street will be restricted to people with company-issued
bracelets_

Does knowing that alter your opinion? That's not intended as a slight, btw.
I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
jqm
Well, since it's a hypothetical scenario, I'd have the free beer bracelet of
course...

And if I didn't, I would still be OK with the event (if I were a resident). 3
days loss of access to main street and some minor inconvenience is a small
price to pay for the economic benefits for the community.

