Some downtown Coupeville merchants aren’t happy about new rules imposed for the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival that they say could hurt business.

The new CFA rules, which will prevent most Front Street merchants from actively participating in the festival, were created in response to ongoing merchant problems and to make things fair for all, festival organizers said.

UNDER THE new CFA guidelines, merchants can no longer use 10 feet of open access space in front of their businesses they’ve previously used to sell wares to festival-goers.

Those spaces will revert back to their original intention, which is to provide visibility and access to each building on Front Street. Merchants can still apply for a vendor space at the festival, but must follow the same process as the visiting artisans.

CFA guidelines require that items be handmade by the person selling them. Each vendor goes through a juried process, pays $105-$110 for booth space, depending on setup times, and pays 15 percent on all sales.

“Their rules are going to seriously undercut my business,” said Pati Brigman, owner of Back to the Island. “They’ve basically swiped out every single merchant from being able to sell merchandise (in the festival).”

A RELATIVELY new business owner in Coupeville, Brigman paid last year to use her access space. She said business was 300 times better than the previous year.

The year prior, Brigman said she didn’t understand why she would pay to be able to sell on the street, but now understands why she needed that presence. Without a presence outside her business, she had less business than a normal busy Saturday.

“It was less sales than when people were just here and I had a thousand people out on the street,” she said. “For me, it was critical and it’s because I had space to put stuff out front.”

Under the new rules, items sold by Brigman don’t meet the vendor criteria.

Brigman is in the same boat as a handful of other downtown merchants who previously utilized the access spaces.

WHILE IN its 52nd year, the festival only started providing access spaces to businesses in the past eight to 10 years, said CFA President Mike Dessert. Merchants started taking over those spaces on their own, promoting implementation of guidelines requiring they pay a $100 fee to use the space.

Some merchants continued displaying items in those spots in violation of CFA rules, he said. “The merchants haven’t been very cooperative,” Dessert said. “It got out of hand. Every year it was more and more of a problem.”

“It got to a point where we said enough is enough.”

“OUR PROBLEM has been trying to make it consistent,” said Carol Moliter, CFA vice president. “We have contributed to the problem with making past concessions.”

There’s also a concern that there is not an access space — past the wall of booths — for each individual business, but only one for each building.

That’s an issue for Cindy Van Dyke, owner of Far From Normal on Front Street. Her shop is one of several housed in one building with several businesses. They all share a 10-foot access space.

“Ten feet for this building isn’t much, not when you have three businesses,” Van Dyke said. “It’s silly.”

Moliter said there just isn’t enough room to give each business its own access space.

NEWS OF CFA’s rule changes spread rapidly, even prior to the association’s formal notification.

Festival leaders planned to be strategic about the notifications and approach each business owner directly impacted by the changes, Moliter said, especially businesses that previously paid for booth space.

After a meeting between the CFA, town, Coupeville Chamber of Commerce and Coupeville Historic Waterfront Association, word of the changes leaked, causing a firestorm.

Some complained that the CFA didn’t talk with merchants prior to making its decision.

“The bottom line is it isn’t up for discussion,” Dessert said. “We get our special event permit from the town. It was the town’s idea to be fair and equitable and this was the only solution.”

COUPEVILLE MAYOR Molly Hughes, who attended the meeting, said that wasn’t exactly the case.

“I told them, ‘It’s your festival. It’s your decision to make,’” Hughes said. “I did say, ‘yes I would back it,’ but I also said you must absolutely have access to those businesses. It’s vital.”

Hughes noted there are only five or six businesses that rent spaces.

“The town is interested in public safety, parking, emergency access, safety issues, but as far as who can participate — that’s up to the applicant,” Hughes said.

THE ISSUE of communication is also a sore point for Van Dyke. Each year, she said, she makes suggestions to the CFA on ways to improve the festival and is essentially disregarded.

Festival and town representatives see it differently.

“We try to hear the complaints and address them,” Moliter said. “Last year we tried closing Front Street earlier Friday evening. It wasn’t good for the businesses. It wasn’t good for us. It didn’t work and it won’t happen again.”

Hughes said she thinks the festival is very responsive.

“I think the Festival Association bends over backwards year after year to communicate with the merchants and make changes,” she said. “It’s always the few but vocal who make it seem like the sky is falling.”

THE COUPEVILLE Chamber had a representative at the meeting to discuss the changes. After word leaked and sparked outrage, the chamber board released a statement to downtown merchants.

“As your chamber representative, please know that these expressed concerns have been presented to the best of our ability to the CFA board … We must respect the decisions of another organization. We must stand as a community to support the diversity of these festivals and honor their decisions in order to build better relations and future collaboration that will benefit the economies of all those involved.”

The email met with mixed reviews.

“Collaboration would imply there’s discussion on both sides,” she said.

Brigman now questions how effectively she’s being represented by the chamber.

“It basically said, ‘Shut up and color inside the lines,’” Brigman said.

“Isn’t the chamber supposed to support businesses? They didn’t represent me at all. I should have gone to that meeting myself. I could have done a better job.”

CHAMBER Executive Director Lynda Eccles was at the meeting and serves on the festival association board.

“The chamber works extremely hard behind the scenes supporting our members,” Eccles said. “We may not be vocal about what we do, but we take our members’ concerns very seriously and unfortunately have no influence in this current situation.”

Chamber president Shelli Trumbull agrees.

“Lynda has provided information on behalf of our members to the Festival Association Board and has been helping to work toward a solution,” she said. “We all know how hard Lynda works on behalf of our members and we strongly recommend that any member that has any questions contact her directly.”

DESSERT SAID the decision comes down to being fair and equitable for all, but some don’t see it that way.

“It’s fair for the merchants to get a space in front of our stores and we shouldn’t have to compete with vendors,” Brigman said. “For the vendors that come to the festival, they’ve chosen this way of life — not to have the cost of a storefront and the overhead costs.”

“We pay rent, utilities, B&O taxes and sales taxes.”

Festival fees go toward covering the cost of putting on and advertising the event, organizers say.

“The whole point of these events is to get people to come to Coupeville, participate in the event and hopefully come back,” Moliter said. “I think we do a good job of putting on a festival and I think we’ve done a good job of advertising the festival and Coupeville as a tourist destination.”

“The 180 vendors that come through here go through a very rigorous process,” Dessert said. “And they end up in a booth next to a merchant selling items from China.”

WHILE THE decision to keep merchant access spaces open is non-negotiable, Moliter said, the festival association is willing to work with merchants. Organizers will help them with the application process and to identify items in their stores that might qualify under the juried guidelines.

Moliter said there is flexibility in the rule about each item needing to be handmade by the person selling the item, for example, an artist who sells prints of their artwork since the print itself isn’t necessarily made by hand.

While merchants can’t be guaranteed a space right in front of their shops, the CFA said it will make every effort to get them as close as possible.

With about 180 vendors taking up 220 booth spaces, the CFA usually turns away applicants.

“I AM very supportive of this festival,” Hughes said. “It brings in a lot of money to the businesses and the people who get grants.

“I give them a lot of credit for trying different things every year based on feedback. I think it’s sad the negative that’s coming out of something that’s supposed to be a positive. It’s a change they made that affects five people.”

“There are only five that have a right to complain.”

Impact of the CFA rules change isn’t clear yet.

“We won’t know until it’s done,” Moliter said.

“We can’t make everyone happy or everyone’s business better, but we can try.”