DATELINE: NEW YORK : For Many, Street Festivals Are Not Always Fun Affairs

For many people, the words “street fair” conjure up images of days gone by, when block associations asked residents to sell their worn-out possessions to help raise money, when children manned lemonade stands and neighbors mingled in the sunshine.

Mention the words to a group of New York City denizens and you’re likely not to get a word in edgewise as residents compete in bashing what’s become, to many here, the latest urban plague.

“It’s hell on Earth,” says Abe Lebewohl, owner of the Second Avenue Deli, who became an unofficial leader of the anti-street fair movement following his arrest during a 1994 festival. “They all have the same crap, the same socks, the same sausages. . . . I don’t know why the city doesn’t put a stop to this nonsense.”

Street events have become so unpopular among New Yorkers that they are now the subject of a municipal crackdown designed to curb a general rise in the number of parades, special events and fairs in the nation’s most populous city.

What happened? Simply put, street fairs became big business as beleaguered nonprofit groups sought desperately to raise money.

While there were always firms specializing in organizing street festivals, the business turned aggressive in recent years as promoters began making presentations to community centers, nursing homes and other charitable enterprises, selling them on a new way to earn money. As a result, New York City hosted more than 4,000 street fairs, block parties and parades in 1994, an increase of 150 to 250 events each year since 1989. Most were simple one-block affairs, but more than 400 required multi-block closures.

Commuters talked of ceaseless traffic jams caused by closing down several major streets to host badly coordinated parades and fairs. Residents grew enraged over noise, litter and the flood of people from other neighborhoods and cities who descended on their turf every weekend.

And store owners complained about lost revenue, including sales taxes, when access to stores was cut off by fair stalls, marchers or traffic barriers. The businesses running these festivals point out that the city receives 20% of booth rental fees from these events, and vendors are supposed to be collecting sales taxes.

City officials counter that the money they take in does not equal the amount put out for such expenses as the overtime for the hundreds of police officers needed to patrol special events--$5 million in 1994 alone.

Lebewohl’s run-in with the law came when he argued with a police officer over not being able to load a catering truck because a fair blocked access to his deli. He went public with his complaints, noting that he lost up to 40% of his business on days when fairs or parades were held.

Suddenly, Lebewohl, 64, found himself almost as famous as his deli. Residents and merchants from other parts of the city began calling on him to help them fight excessive events in their neighborhoods. But when he attended public hearings on proposed street fairs, he found himself under attack by festival promoters. “They filled the room with their people. I was Hitler. One woman was ready to take a swing at me,” Lebewohl recalled.

Until this year, street fairs, parades, walkathons and other such events were approved strictly on the local level. Calling the problem a “quality of life” issue, City Hall has stepped in, requiring sponsors to get approval from a city office before approaching neighborhood authorities.

“There’s nothing wrong with street fairs. We love them. But there’s been an enormous proliferation of them,” said New York City Deputy Mayor Fran Reiter. “The government needs to balance the needs and desires of people who work at and frequent street fairs with the needs and desires of people who live and work where street fairs are located.”

City officials are demanding changes in the size, scope and location of events. Organizations have been ordered to move events off main drags and onto side streets, and asked to shorten the number of blocks they propose to close to traffic.

“If people hated the street fairs, they wouldn’t be packed,” said Mort Berkowitz, owner of a local street festival producer. “I think there are people who gripe about everything in the world.”