A few bad apples

Looks like the Chapel Hill Apple Chill Festival has come to a violent end. For those of you not familiar with Apple Chill, it was an arts carnival held on a Sunday in April every year. The Town of Chapel Hill hosted the festival and blocked off both ends of Franklin Street to allow arts and craft booths to be set up along with performance stages. Over the past few years the crowds have grown larger and larger and this past weekend reaching approximately 30,000. Generally the crowds are well behaved but the past couple of years have included some bad apples (yes, I know, bad pun). I know of a couple of knifings and gun brandishing have occurred in prior years but this year had three shootings. What's up with that? Who feels the need to bring a gun to a street festival and in Chapel Hill to boot?

The common perception is that the problem crowd results from the motorcycle (crotch rocket) festival that originally started as people bringing their bikes to show off and eventually had to be integrated into the festival to control it. I'm not sure if the motorcyclists had anything to do with the shootings or not but a lot of people are blaming them as the bad element. Of course there are racial undertones in that supposedly a lot of the motorcyclists are Black. I definitely think the town has made a wise move in the interim to cancel the festival for next year. I'm not exactly sure how they would prevent such incidents from occuring again and if they legally could exclude certain groups, i.e. whomever is the offending group. The negative impact will be on the businesses along Franklin Street that already struggle against high rents and a lack of parking. The residents and students of Chapel Hill will also suffer because of a few idiots that don't consider others in their decisions. Unfortunately it looks like the cancellation will have spillover effects to the usually safe and peaceful Halloween gathering and I'll jump to conclusions to even future sporting event celebrations which are traditionally well behaved.

Sorry for the rant, here's the press release that somebody sent to the Planning listserv tonight. Edited to add: Here's an article about the incidents and the 235 police that were supposed to stop the violence.

"Mayor says town should stop hosting festival"- Chapel Hill News

Council Meeting Summary for April 24, 2006

CHAPEL HILL - The Chapel Hill Town Council met on Monday, April 24, and considered an agenda that included the following highlights. Council meetings are cablecast live on Time Warner Cable of Chapel Hill Channel
18 and are rebroadcast at 9 a.m. the morning after the meeting and periodically throughout the week. Generally, the meetings also are cablecast on Durham Cable Vision Channel 8 at 1 p.m. on the Friday following the Council meeting. The full agenda is available for review on the Web http://townhall.townofchapelhill.org/agendas/2006/04/24/
or by contacting the Town Clerk's Office at 968-2743 or townclerk@townofchapelhill.org.

- An End to Apple Chill
The Council passed a resolution to end the street fair. The resolution stated that the fair has grown to attract crowds of more than 30,000, challenging the abilities of Town staff and outside resources to effectively manage the event. There were shootings on Franklin Street, and roads remained congested for about five hours after the fair's conclusion. The Council also requested a report on the social and financial impacts of Festifall and Halloween.