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 rules, which will prevent most Front Street merchants from being able to actively participate in the festival, are in response to ongoing merchant problems and an attempt to make things fair for all, festival organizers said.

Under the new guidelines, merchants can no longer use the 10 feet of open access space in front of their businesses they’ve previously used to sell wares to festivalgoers. 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 they must follow the same process as the visiting artisans.

The guidelines require that sale 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).”

As a relatively new business owner in Coupeville, Brigman has experienced two festivals. Last year she paid to use her access space and said business was 300 times better than the previous year.

The first year, she explained, she didn’t understand why she would want to pay to be able to sell on the street but quickly understood 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.”

With the new rules, the types of items Brigman sells don’t meet the criteria for vendors. She is in the same boat as a handful of other downtown merchants who previously utilized the access spaces.

A history of tensions

While in its 52nd year, the festival only started providing access spaces to businesses in the last 8-10 years, said festival president Mike Dessert. Merchants started taking over those spaces on their own, which prompted the implementation of guidelines requiring them to pay a $100 fee to use the space.

Some merchants continued setting stuff out in those spots in violation of the rules, he said. Other merchants started complaining about those merchants not following the rules.

“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.”

It’s a problem the festival association also takes some blame for.

“Our problem has been trying to make it consistent,” said Carol Moliter, festival 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. It’s an issue for Cindy Van Dyke, owner of Far From Normal on Front Street. Her shop is one of several on Front Street that is housed in one building with several businesses, but receives only one 10-foot access space.

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

But Moliter said there just isn’t enough room to give individual business its own access space. She pointed out that the association posts printed signs directing festival goers to businesses at each access space.

Leaked rules caused stir

News of the festival’s rule changes spread rapidly by email and word of mouth, prior to the association’s formal notification.

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

However, after a meeting between the festival, town, chamber and historic waterfront association representatives, word of the changes leaked, causing a firestorm.

For some, the consternation was that the association didn’t have any discussion with merchants prior to making the 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.”

Mayor Molly Hughes, who was a part of 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.”

For all the talk, Hughes said there are only five or six businesses that buy spaces. The town doesn’t tell event organizers how to plan the content of their event, but rather oversees the logistics.

“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 point of contention for Van Dyke. She said that each year she makes suggestions to the association on ways to improve the festival and is essentially blown off.

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 that make it seem like the sky is falling.”

Business representation questioned

The Coupeville Chamber of Commerce had a representative at the meeting to discuss the changes. After word leaked and sparked outrage, the chamber board released a statement to its 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,” it said in part. “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 was met with mixed reviews.

Van Dyke zeroed in on the use of the word “collaboration.”

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

For Brigman, she questions how effectively she’s being represented.

“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 also serves on the 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 agreed.

“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.”

What is fair?

Dessert said the decision comes down to making it 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.”

The festival fees go to cover 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.”

And while the association deals with complaints from merchants, it also has to deal with the 180 vendors that pay to participate in the festival.

“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.”

Deadline approaching

The deadline for vendor applications is March 31.

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

She said there is some flexibility in the rule about each item needing to be handmade by the person selling the item.

An example, she said, is an artist who is selling prints of their artwork since the print itself isn’t necessarily made by hand.

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

The association has to sort out location requests as well as deal with issues like not putting two of the same type of vendor near each other.

And with roughly 180 vendors taking up 220 booth spaces, the festival is in the position of turning 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 effects five people. There are only five that have a right to complain.”

The results of this year’s change won’t be known until after the festival is all said and done.

“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.”