August 1, 2024 • 39 mins
Special episode with guest Mike Oz, where we'll get some insight and information on the recent news about the big changes to the ART HOP in downtown Fresno.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
This could give me for our podcast What Up on Gizzo?
That is John Magic and we are back.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
All right.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
This is one of those special episodes where we're actually
recording it and we're gonna release it on the same
day because the topic has something to do with the
downtown Fresnel art hop and today is August first, as
the recording of this podcast, and so if you're listening
to this after it might sound out of context, but
the main topic will be about the whole downtown Fresno
(00:33):
news about art hop changing. And we brought one of
our friends guests, our special guest today. He's been on
before when we first started interviewing guests on our podcast,
so it's good to have him back. And he's very
knowledgeable in today's topic about art hop. He's one of
(00:55):
the founders of Fresne Street Eats. He's also one of
the originators of the Taco Truck throw Down. And if
I'm not mistaken, it's your birthday today, ladies, and Mike
Oz is here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Back in the building. Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
First, Sam and heck that I'm up.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, happy birthday first and foremost. But yeah, let's just
get to this. The whole art hop thing, because today's
the first day that it's going to have its new style.
Can we go back for the people that are listening,
uh and are not familiar to art hop, can you
tell them real quick about art hop?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Honestly, I feel like most people don't even understand how
art hop works. What what I would love to do
is just break down for you, like how it all
even works, right, and sort of who the players are,
just to set the table for all the other stuff
that's gonna happen. Yeah, okay, So art hop is a
thing that I believe it could happen anywhere, right, there's
art hops in other cities. So in Fresno it was
(01:56):
started by the Fresnow Arts Council, and they're sort of
a collective of you know people that that you know,
promote the arts. So they promer art galleries, they promer artists,
stuff like that. So they started art hop back in
like nineteen ninety six, I believe, maybe before that, but
like back in the nineties. So they are they are
the presiding entity over art hop, like they are in
(02:18):
charge of art hop. But as art hop kind of grew,
you know, it's changed over the year. So I remember
going to art hop in like the early like two thousands, right,
so like two thousand and three, two thousand and four,
and at that point, like it was mostly in galleries.
You would start to get your that's when we started
to see your first sort of like outdoor stuff. But
a lot of times I was, you know, twenty four
(02:40):
twenty five years old. People my age would go and
we weren't really interested in like art on the walls
and galleries, right, You go in there because they'd have
free wine and they'd have free food sometimes, and then
you'd go to a couple of the galleries. You'd be like, oh,
that's pretty cool, like whatever, and then you'd go somewhere
to a bar, you'd go party somewhere. Right, That's kind
of like what art hop was, And honestly, I feel
like that's still kind of what art hop is, right like,
(03:01):
And so all these people that say it's changed, like,
in my mind, it hasn't really changed all that much,
just changed like where you.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Go so real quick has also changed with the amount
of people's.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
That's probably like what change, they just got bigger.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Uh So, So the Arts Council had always kind of
been in charge of art hob But to be sort
of an art hop venue, you have to sign up
and you pay them like dues, right, which I think
right now it's around two hundred bucks, maybe a little
bit less. So let's use an example of like Tioguskoy, right,
who we work with. Tierguskoya is signed up as an
official art hop venue. Then after that, the Arts Council
really doesn't have much to do with like what they
(03:36):
do at their place. So like Tioga, they can bring
in whatever artists they want. They could come to us
and get food trucks and they could do all of
those things. So the Arts Council really just is like, Okay,
you're part of our thing, and if you need services,
like if you come to them and say, hey, I'm
looking for an artist, they might be able to refer
you out or like hey, you know, can we do this?
Can you promote this? And then the Arts Council kind
of promotes the galleries and stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Right real quick, let me let me just so I
could be clear during art hop Tyoga needs to pay
the council.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
It's like a once a year thing. Oh wow, Okay,
it's like a membership kind of thing. Right. That was
like every third Ye it's like to be like a
member of art hop every year. So that's how the
URS Council kind of sustained it's got it. So then
what happens is, you know, these like outdoor things start
to pop up, and you know, I've heard it explain
that a lot of the a lot of people who
are artists, right, and artists is a very wide term,
(04:25):
don't feel like they're accepted in the galleries because galleries
are sort of a different thing, and I'm just gonna
set up outside and start selling stuff, right, And so
that starts happening.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So these are like the the booth that starts setting
up on the sidewalk, and some.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Of them are legitimately painters or whatever, right they feel like, well,
I'm not a gallery person, I'm you know whatever. And
then that leads to more and more of that, and
then you start getting people selling trinkets and shirts, you.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
And so it's at some point, like I would say
pre COVID was when you started to see a lot
of stuff happening in the street yep. And so at
that point though, it's kind of up to the art
the Arts Council kind of just as the oversight on
the venues and the venues kind of do their own thing.
And if you wanted to go out there and sell something,
just to find a street corner or partner with the
venue and say hey, can I just set up outside
(05:15):
your place? You know that's between you and them, right, Like,
nobody really is caring about that. The city is not
involved in this at all at this point.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Right, city they're not paying a yearly.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
No city has well, I mean, City Hall is an
art hop venue, so maybe the city actually plays, but
I mean, it wasn't like the city, city council or
anything like that decided what goes on in art hop or
at any say in art hop, right, which is as
we're gonna get to that sort of you know what's
changing now?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Can I Can I just paint the picture real quick
of because I live in downtown and uh, that's when
I started seeing the masses. It's a block party. I
would I live right on Fulton and I would just
look outside and thousands of people are walking the streets
and yeah, on the sidewalk, it's just booths of from
(06:02):
food to art to little What are the things that
you buy for the crocs, anything you could think of
someone selling something and the energy. I was like, this
is amazing. Music everywhere, food trucks everywhere. There's a park,
like right near my apartment complex. I remember one year
(06:22):
there was salsa dancing there. It is a vibe. It
is such real quick. There outside my apartment complex, somebody
was doing a BATCHI a whole full grill set up
and selling stuff. So it was.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Probably a vibe, that's what I'm saying, right, so that
stuff starts happening. I remember being down there and like,
you know, again the same area, there was somebody that
was in one of those apartments that's also like a
loft and you know, like a mixed use place, and
there was a band that was just playing you know,
in front of the like on the doorstep, and the
crowd was like blocking the street.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So you get stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, the teasy guys and myself we DJed at one
of a balcony and that. Yeah, it's just such a
great energy.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
So all that stuff was always like, yeah, you just
do whatever right, like and if you're a if you're
a if you have a business or whatever. People just
started doing that and like started building all these other
things around and so around the pandemic, I think is
when the city started to look around and be like,
all right, look like we might be running into some
issues here.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So I remember, as we.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Start to come out of the pandemic, I get on
a phone call with the city manager at the time,
a bunch of other people at the city and some
other folks, and they're like, Hey, this is what we
want to do. We want to create these two block
party kind of ideas. One is the one in the
Brewer District that we manage, and one was over by
Warner's Theater, where we're going to shut down the streets
or you can shut down the streets like it was
up to us to do it and sort of have
(07:44):
some semblance of like order right, like you you can
curate the stuff, you can bring in the food trucks, whatever,
and here's here's how we're going to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We're going to walk you through the process.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
On getting the road closure and you know, you got
to get insurance, you got to pay this. And so
that's the first time I ever shut down the street.
And it was you know, sort of at the urging
of the city because they wanted to initiate some structure, okay,
And so that's how we ended up with that block
party in the brewery district. There was the one in
Warner's and then all the all the businesses in the street.
I couldn't get along about it.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So it stopped.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Okay, I don't I don't recall a street closure there there.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Was for a while. And so DFP was Downtown Friends
of the Partnership there another entity we have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
They were involved in that.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
So DFP is there like a a an association of
property owners downtown in a certain area. Right, so they
pay basically, they tax themselves and then DFP provides marketing
and events and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So DFP for a while has kind of been like, hey,
I think we should be in charge of our hop,
right because we have more of a like the arts
Council kind of threw up his hands and said, Hey,
all this other stuff that's happened in that's not our
We're not in charge of that. That's not our problem.
We're not going to patrol it, we're not going to
be the police. And so you started to run into
this thing where they only cared about the galleries and
nobody cared about anything else that would go yeah, and
(08:55):
for the most part it was cool, right, there wasn't
a lot of problems. But as we've rest the problem
became that like nobody's in charge. And so that's kind
of how we got to today. Right. So you have
you know, the city then stepping in and being like,
I don't know, I think this needs to change, and
the Arts Council kind of being like, well, you know, we.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Don't have anything to do with anything that's happened in
the street.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
And the people like me who's like, hey, we're doing
everything right, you know, we have all your permits, all
your stuff, like, there's no reason we should get shut down.
And there's a few other there's like four or five
people like me that have permits and do things the
right way, you know, like Alley in the Valley, mos Fresno,
Bad Kids Club, and so we have our little spaces
that we pay for permits for and the insurance and
(09:39):
everything that goes into all that, and so we all
got shut down too. And that's sort of where I
was like, this is not fair, right, because if you're
targeting all the people who, let's say, you know, because
I've seen people out there on the corner selling you know,
tall cans out of a vocation, right, like all of
us know that's illegal. Yeah, nobody's enforcing it though, so whatever,
(10:00):
I haven't seen it with my own hands, but I
haven't seen in eyes.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I've seen. I saw that, I've.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Seen people they I've heard that they're people out there
selling edibles the kids, you know, and again, so those
are things that at some point somebody needs.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
To take charge of. Uh.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
So that's sort of how we got to where we
got to a couple of weeks ago where they said
we're just gonna shut it all down for the month
of August, right, And at that point I was like, man,
you can't do this two weeks out. You can't do
it to everybody. And in my head, the example was like,
if you see people speeding on the freeway, you don't
pull over all the cars. You pull over the cars
that are that are speeding, right, you don't give take
(10:33):
us to everyone. And so that's kind of where where
things got, right. So that was that press conference that
Miguel Aarius had. As I came to find out later,
the mayor was on vacation and didn't really even fully
know what was going on.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Geez.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Then the mayor gets back and they're like, all right,
we gotta figure we got to figure this whole thing
out right, which kind of brings us to this week where.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So the thing when I heard, you know, it became viral.
Everyone was posting about this announcement he makes, and the
thing that caught me off guard was him saying, nothing
has happened all these years, all these years, nothing has happened.
But we're gonna prevent that. But I'm a big believer
of it. Like, if it ain't broke, don't fix this
(11:14):
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah. What I always liked about our hop is like
how organic it kind of grew and how it was
kind of for the people by the people essentially, and
then it just feels like every time somebody decides to
step in, that's when problems start happening. That's kind of
like what I feel.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, same Now you bring up the quote unquote allegedly
illegal sales of you know, when you when you I see,
I didn't know about that. Okay, I could see where.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
They might want to regulate regulate that, but I'm.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
With you with the people that are doing it the
right way, why are they getting.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Or you just go and you just go and regulate that, right,
you go and get rid of that person. You can't
do that, Like it seems pretty easy, Like that's why
you have police and code enforcement and all these kind
of things to be So what I felt like happened
was like everybody just didn't pay attention for a long time,
and then now they're like, uh, can I cuss on this?
Like shit, we gotta pay attention and oh man, what
(12:13):
are we gonna do? And they're all scrambling to figure
it out, and it's like, well, if it were me,
just just first of all, go address the problems. Right
if I look at it like this, right, if you
have this whole I don't know, five or six blocks
or whatever it is, well it's even more if you
go further down where you live ten blocks, right and say,
all right, well, look, we know that what Street's does
is good. We know that these places are all good.
(12:34):
So hey, we only got to worry about six blocks now, yeah,
and so let's let's focus on cleaning up these six
blocks and the next month let's do it again. Oh
you know, cool, Now we only have four blocks to
worry about. And the next month you only have two blocks.
You know, like that's how you progressively just sort of
fix the problem.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I agree to just everybody, Yeah, they there should have
been a better plan instead of like, oh, in two weeks,
we're shutting everyone down.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
And and I mean, so the give you some other
contexts some of this. There was I don't know, two
or three years ago, there was a meeting where the
Arts Council and its board of directors wanted to I
don't know, maybe they were just complaining, but they it
seemed like they wanted to take back control of art Hop.
But then they don't really have the resources to manage it, right,
So a bunch of us went to this meeting ready
(13:20):
to like argue with them. You know that you can't
take this away. You can't just like get rid of
all these people. And it definitely seems I mean, I'm
wearing the Tacos and Trinkets shirt. I don't know if
you guys read that quote from one of the downtown
business owners. That's like art hop just turned into tacos
and trinkets, And a lot of it seemed very like
class ish, like you know, old versus new, and sort
(13:42):
of this like we think art hop should be this.
Somebody said to me at this time, art hop should
be an event for sophisticated adults. And I'm like, art
hop is an event for whoever decides it's an event.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, that's that's what I say, granically for the people.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, I mean if people want to do the high
art thing, yeah, there's options for everyone.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That was the best part about it. Yeah, whoever wants
to be a part of it, I'm saying, and just
do it the right way.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
So this class has.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Been going on sort of like on the on the
d L a little bit for like three years now,
with the Arts Council trying to like, you know, we're
not happy with the way art hop is, right, but
we don't we don't really have the resources to fix it,
so I don't know. And then dfp's over here like, well,
you know, we we as the downtown people, see that
it needs something. Does somebody want to give us some
(14:26):
money and we can We'll be in charge of it,
And nobody gives them money and so so so this
they kind of just kicked the ball, you know, down
the road, down the road.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And then eventually.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Miguel Alreace comes knocking and is like hear all you
And I mean, so I see from my from sitting
where I sit and knowing all the things I know,
I see how that happens, right, Like eventually somebody with
some authority has.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
To come in.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
And it's kind of like being a parent and telling
your kids like, hey, do this thing.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I'm going to take away your your video games. Hey
do this.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
I've asked you three times, take away your thing. You
take away the video games?
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Like why did you take away my video game? You know?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
And I mean, I see it, right, but I also
feel like it could have been done differently. But I
wonder also behind the scenes, like you know, who's pressuring
who to say? You know, is the arts Council, Like, hey,
we really want we want to take back control of
our hop because this is our thing. We started this,
and they definitely have a pride about that. And that's true,
right they started it. But like it's me, I would say,
(15:25):
it's turned into something new. The younger generation has bought
in and adopted it. Yeah, it turned it into something different,
maybe better than what we maybe may not better, different
than what we thought it was gonna be. Yeah, but
that's cool, right, because ten or fifteen thousand people are
coming down.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Here when it was maybe, you know, seven hundred or.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So. Let's go to you know, today's August first, it's
gonna be the first starb That's that's changed. What when
I look out into my balcony, am I not gonna
see the sidewalks full of people walking up and down?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I mean the people is the biggest question.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
I feel like, So you're not supposed to in theory,
you're not going to see all You're not going to
see the guy with theh habbachi grill on the street.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
No tense, you're not supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
You're not supposed to suppos to.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
So what I'm going to be upset about is if
they kicked out all of our legit vendors and then
they just let all the whoever vendors go up and yeah,
because it's like we're all doing it right. But I've
I've already seen pictures that cod enforceman is out this
morning because people get out there and set up art
hof for like no especially like near the brewery district.
They get out there at like nine eight o'clock trying
to get a space. Like it's like a Green Bay
(16:34):
Packer's tailgate or something. Right, people areut there like twelve
hours early.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I mean there's gonna be no vendors out there
in the street.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
There's not supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Not supposed to be supposed to be even the people
that you said did it right, nobody, They just didn't
want nobody out there.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
And then so like any of the any of the
stuff that happens like on city property, so streets, you know,
streets would be city property, sidewalks like the stuff we're doing.
We're back inside Tyoga, which is sort of what we
did before, and it just would be back in the day.
It just got so crowded in there that we're like
we gotta spread out, spread it all out. So it
was put in the street. So we're gonna have We're
gonna have like four food trucks and some some artists
(17:08):
and vendors and stuff inside inside Tayoga. So we can
do that because it's on private property. There's a lot
across the street. This private property. We're gonna have a
couple of food trucks. So it's not gonna be like
what it normally is in the Brew District, but it's
gonna be like close. I don't know what else, you know,
who else is planning?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
What I know?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
The guy that does Alley in the valley at least
is said on Instagram he's.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Still gonna do it.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
He's not calling it art hop, he's calling it first Thursdays.
And but it mean it's gonna be on city property.
So it'll be interesting to see if the city actually
goes out and enforces it or if they just say,
like cause there was I don't know, maybe eight months ago. Again,
this whole kind of thing has been going on for
a while. They got Code Enforcement ABC. This is after
the the guy because literally the guy with the beer
(17:49):
in the ice chests, like a bunch of people saw
that and they were like, we can't have this. So
ABC came out, you know, alcohol, alcohol beverage Control, the county,
the city.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
All that can't knock us.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And they went out and.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Just started trying to you know, enforce things or whatever
and what they should. What I heard back was like
Code Enforcements like, oh, people are being mean to us,
like the vendors, because the vendors are like, you can't
kick me out of here, and the quote Enforcement's like,
oh well, okay, yeah, just back down. And it's like, well,
now they think they could do whatever, So you're not
gonna have any teeth if you go out and try
to tell anybody else to leave. So I'm really curious
(18:23):
see what happens today. If the vendors are just gonna
be like, you can't tell me nothing, or if PD
is actually gonna like kick them out, you know, that's
gonna be interesting and it's funny. I mean, this is
off topic, but it exactly mirrors the entire conversation about
the homeless population too, right, because that's also going on
right now, and it's like you're just gonna round people
up and kick them out and somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And so the city is doing.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
A lot of this right now, and it's it's hard
to it's hard to like look at it and be like, man,
this makes a lot of sense, because it just I
don't know that it does.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
So you you agree with it should have been regulated,
there should have been somebody in charge, but just the
way they're going about it is just wrong, I think.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
So I think I think it needed somebody to make
sure that we're.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Not selling beers out of I think that's fair. Yeah, well,
I mean, just why can't you just pull up and
you know, ask these people do you have the right documents,
you have, the insurance you have, and then that's how
you regulate it. And it could still go. I don't
understand why everybody.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Those food vendors don't right, Yeah, And but I also
think that you know, I'm I'm of the camp of
like people will set up right outside our event in
a food truck or just has a tent or whatever,
And I mean we could go over there and tell
them like, hey, get out of here, but we don't.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Like.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Instead, we'd rather be like, hey, so you got a
food truck, Okay, cool, Well here's what it takes to
join us, Like if you want to be legit with
residence d It's like, yeah, that's my approach to doing things.
And that I think the city in the beginning sort
of took that approach of like, well, you know, if
you want to if you have this food standing, you
want to become legitimate, here's.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
What you got to do.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
So education rather than enforcement, yeah, which I think is
the right way to do that kind of thing. So
I would say, if you're if you're out there and
you're trying like if you're trying to be a legitimate business,
Like my goal is to open up a restaurant, so
right now, I just got this this grill in this
tent or whatever. But like, yeah, I'll get a business
license and all the awesome, fantastic you're helping that person
(20:08):
on their on their journey if you are, and I
know you guys know this because you live in the
same world I do. If you're one of those people
that's standing out a concert outside of a concert trying
to sell bootleg T shirts because there's twenty thousand people inside,
like those are the same kind of people that.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Show up at our hop, right, They're just hustlers.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, I'm just trying to sell something because there's twenty
thousand people here, and so if those people are doing
something illegal, then I would say, yeah, like get rid
of them. If they're just like, hey, I'm trying to
sell like a bootleg T shirt whatever, I don't I
don't really care. But if you're if you're doing something
that is that is illegal, I would be like, somebody
needs to enforce that.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
All the things that you're saying right now. Did you
bring this up to them.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yes, And was there a response to that.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
So this is this is the other part that we
haven't gone into it. So the big, the big argument
from the city is this, uh we we mean the
we be in the city. The city will tell you
we don't have the police presence to handle our hop
as it is on Thursdays. There's too many people and
there's too much other crime in President on a Thursday
(21:04):
that we don't have enough cops. Basically, if something goes wrong,
right or if.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, but the thing that was correct me if I'm wrong,
didn't they say, like, yeah, it's true, all these years,
nothing's happened.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, there's black a couple of random you know, like
but it's also the kind of stuff that that happens
on a Thursday. Like somebody was stabbed, right, but it
wasn't in during art hot proper. It was like hours
later kind of near downtown.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I mean, and we're happy to was a Christmas
tree lane. There was like a stab me, you know
what I mean. So it's just like it's stuff happens.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
But so so, but there is there is definitely there
was definitely a desire from the city to kind of
split the events, and I know the Arts Council has
been big in that, so that's kind of why I
wonder what happened behind closed doors. So I mean, as
a I guess there was. There was a meeting on
Tuesday that I went to along with a lot of
the other event organizers, some downtown business owners, the mayor,
(21:55):
Miguel Arrius, people like that, and they kind of rolled
out their plan of like we're gonna do art hop
is going to be indoors only the Arts Council is
going to be in charge of it. The quote was,
and even I'll pull up my phone and read it
to you exactly because I wrote it down. It was
like that we want to return art hop to uh,
preserve art hop as it was originally intended. So they
(22:17):
want art hop to be what it was, what it
originally intended to be. And then we wanted to take
street party part of it and make it a different
event on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Uh. I don't even know what to say to that.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And so that's where we're at right now.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
That's and they rolled that out also to the public
last night at a different at a different meeting. So
I think today what you're going to see today is
sort of like this weird kind of in between, you.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Know, kind of thing and transition some people are you
feel like some people are still going to be out
there hustling and setting up.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I mean, but I think people are going to keep
doing that regardless, right because the people that the people
that are doing that, I don't think are paying attention
to social media or the news or you know, they're
not like, like, I trucks hit me up today like hey,
how do we get into art hop? And I'm like,
do you live under a rock?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Because you know that park that's near my apartment complex
and with those uh everyone says the umbrella, the that
place was packed with food trucks and people. You're telling
me there won't be anyone out there that is that is.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
A thing that So you guys know Tony from Vinder
Village he works with us. Yeah, yeah, so he operates
that like we helped him get to permit and sort
of he operates that as like a vendor village street.
He's collaboration. So yeah, that's not that's not allowed. Oh
those permits that we have for those events, they're they're
just not honoring them.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Oh man, it's this area is perfect for I know, yeah,
like family friendly.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And like we could get that permit, for instance, on
a Friday night and do that every Friday night if
we you know, like no issue with.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
That, but they just don't want it done on our heart.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
That is so that that's what it's gonna suck for
me because the first Thursdays of every month, just the
energy when I go home after work, because the people
start coming out at five pm and then I go
out my balcony thousands of it's so cool to see.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
This is like what upsets me because it's very like
a Fresno thing that happens. Right, Like we we try
to have like our own identity. We try to be
our own people. We try to grow things like for
the people organically. You know, I've always been somebody I
was born and raised here and I always you know,
everyone just talked about how bad downtown was. It was
the trash, no one goes there. And then you know,
when they built the stadium down there, it was like, okay,
(24:31):
this is going to bring back downtown and then all
these apartments. Yeah, all the past few years, like downtown
is like where it's at, it's popping. It's grown organically
the people. I've grown it people like Mike oz of
how the situation and everything's going good and then here
comes the city and says, oh nope. And it's just
like every time we have something like we could just
never have nice things. That's saying right, like Freze could
just never have nice things?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Athers me.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Is that you know, I've been here. I'm not from here, right,
but I've been here long enough. Now, I've been here
for twenty years. I grew up, I came here to
work for the be right, So I was writing about
like downtown and sort of I immediately when I got
here was like, Yo, this place is this place could
be really dope, and so I kind of started to
you know, push that like that was sort of one
of the things I was into as a journalist, was
like trying to get people to go downtown. And I've
(25:14):
seen so many different ideas that that people have invested
money and time in that just don't work, right, start,
start and stop and all this thing, and I'm like,
this is finally the thing that worked.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah exactly, be like no.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
And I it seems to me like like let's say
that you're you know, you're you're a little kid and
every year you ask for a pony, right, and like
fifteen years you don't get a pony, and then finally
you get a pony, and the first time the pony
takes a shit, you don't want to clean it up
and you don't want a pony anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
What's going on? Like, you guys, you got.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Everything you wanted. Finally you got people coming downtown.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I mean, figure it out instead of.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
It's a scene down there and they're just like, nah no,
we don't want to sing.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Man.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I feel like there has to be there had to
be other solutions, Like I completely understand. So this is
the other thing I didn't get to right on the Wednesday.
So this is why they're they're pitching Wednesdays pretty hard.
Is that they say that they have an excess of
police officers on Wednesdays because there's a lot more crime
on Thursday that there is on Wednesday. But from my perspective,
so if they could come to me and say, Okay,
you want to keep your Thursday thing cool, well you're
(26:21):
gonna have to hire off duty police and pay them
over time or whatever, and that's gonna cost like a
thousand dollars. We have security at our event, which we
just paid normal security rates and that's fine. And again
that's why I feel like we should be We're different
than just the sort of open streets where people just
setting stuff up. But if they come in and tell
every event organizer, like, hey, you guys need to split
up like twenty thousand dollars in security costs, I mean
(26:44):
PD costs, Like that'll kill our hot right there too. Yeah, right,
So the city is and I think they're being honest
here trying to figure out a way to do it
in a way that they don't pass all those costs
onto us, that they can eat the cost of of
like PD enforcement and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Which I think a city should do.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
You should that you should be doing that in the
interest of having people assemble in your downtown. So that's
that's another reason for the Wednesday. But I guess the
point that I was gonna get to was, uh, actually
I forgot proud to go for it.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
But yeah, but I mean, now they're gonna split it
in two days. So they want, you know, the art
hop on Thursday, and then if they want the street vendors,
that's gonna be like on a Wednesday, we don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
We don't know what Wednesday yet. There's gonna be a
meeting tomorrow to kind of talk more about this.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
We'll see, you know, someone's going to create something down
the line, and like, but it's.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Not organic now, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
What I worry about is like, you know, the the
when they came to us about, hey, we're gonna do
these little block party things. You know, we're gonna put
you you're in charge of this block. I mean that
was only three or four years ago, and that was
a different city manager. Different you know, same mayor, but
different city manager. And that was their idea then. So
like let's say we do this thing, and three years
from now they're like, oh, well we actually don't want
(27:57):
to do Wednesdays anymore now, we want to do something else,
you know. And it's like it took twenty years to
build what we built with our hop.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well, I'm hoping that you know, there's these solutions that
you've already brought up that you would like to see
hopefully slowly things can change again. But do you feel
like that energy will be where people will be over it?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I don't know. I mean, tonight would be kind of
a good test. I guess, do you see this this
kind of fading away or do you think they're going
to stay on top of this.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Don't I don't know that I see it fading away.
I mean I think that it's become such a big deal.
An example that I would maybe use is, I don't know,
three or four months ago, there was there's there's I
can always been complaints in the tower about you know
a lot of the vendors that are out, you know,
really late and sort of being in the way, and
(28:52):
there's all the restaurants there. But you go to the
tower like Friday, Saturday, Thursday night, I mean, there's tons
of food trucks and just tends all the same kind
of stuff, right, And so they went in there and
they said, okay, we're gonna have this new sort of
thing for vendors, and it they did it, I don't know,
a couple weeks and then it kind of just went away.
But I don't that didn't definitely did not get as
much attention as this. So I would be shocked if
(29:15):
it just went back to the way it was in
like three weeks, you know, or because it is a
once a month thing, so I feel like, you know,
something like the tower we're talking about every Thursday, Friday,
Saturday is a little harder to patrol.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
But I don't know, like what would they do.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
For instance, Let's say if people just started coming out
every day, right, it's just like you know, basically, you know,
there's too much for code enforcement to handle.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Then what happens.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
And so there's a lot of different aspects of this.
But I do feel like the city is if they're
going to commit resources to Wednesday, which they're saying they
are they have, then they have an interest in making
Wednesday's work. And I brought that up too. I'm like,
you guys are not in the event business. Yeah, like
you know, are you gonna you're gonna engage people like us?
And are you gonna pay us? Or are you still
can do this for free? And you know, there's all
(29:59):
kinds of questions there that we haven't figured out. And
I mean, I do think that there is in a
for the people by the people kind of way, a
chance to maybe imagine what would we do if we
could you know, an ideal world, and hope that you know,
we can do that. Like one of the one of
the Brewer re district bar owners we've talked for a
while and the brewer restrict about like can we just
(30:19):
get open carry, so just even on that block, so
you could walk you can walk out of full Circle
with a beer and walk into Tiogo with you know
where you could walk out of Moderates with a mixed drin,
could take it over to Tyoga and all that would
be legal. And if you do that, I mean that's
a game changer, right.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
One of the one of the bar owners is like, well,
can we do that on Wednesdays? Because that would that
would be cool, That would be different, you know. And
if downtown Fresno is like the one place where you
could walk around with a beer in the street like
New Orleans, then awesome downtown.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
For that, right.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
But if our whole thing is like, oh, we don't
have police, if we don't have diffrastructure, then what's going
to happen?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Then?
Speaker 4 (30:52):
You know, So it's it's just this kind of chicken
egg thing in that regard. But I think there has
to be something different about it, right, and it has
to be like, you know, beyond what we're doing now. Yeah,
it has to be cooler than that in order to
kind of re engage the people.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
And like you said, like these things take time. I mean,
look how long it took for you know, our hop
to pop off and trying to start a Wednesday. I
don't know, that's tough.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
How long it takes took us to get fredjust to
what Fred jus is right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah, that's true when it comes to Okay, let's just
kind of focus on tonight. Are you is your spirit
down about it? Or is your spirit kind of high
hoping people show up to tie?
Speaker 4 (31:27):
My spirit is way down man. Yeah, Like I feel
I feel very defeated.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
And I feel that energy is like people are feeling
that energy, and I feel like that alone is you know,
going to make people not even want to show up.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
I've seen on social media like I'm not going and
rest in peace of art up like and for me
for someone that lives down there, like man, Like, like
I said, I love energy and.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Yeah, and the reality is it's hard to get people
downtown as it is.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yes, you could just.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
I'm always surprised about the every Thursday. I'm like, why
is there thousands?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
You can just go to River.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Park or you can go to Campus Point, yeah, Clovis
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Man, well, yeah, tonight's gonna be uh yeah, we'll see
how it goes tonight. We're gonna see how it kind
of changes through each month hopefully things kind of I
don't want to say get back to normal or.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
We're looking to you.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
It's very much of a wait and see, Like I'm wait,
I'm approaching this almost like it's it's the super Bowl, right,
and I'm just I'm just gonna I just want to watch.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
And see what happens.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Yeah, because I don't have any I don't have any
basis of whatever, Like I'm gonna sit out there with
some tacos or something and just kind of like observe, Yeah,
because I have to see it with my own eyes
before I can gauge, like what's gonna happen next, Like
are people still gonna come out and hey, we're just
gonna go do whatever we're gonna do, or are they
gonna be like, no, we're not going to your our galleries.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
We're here for the street party.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
And if nobody's there all of a sudden, like people
are like, oh crap, they.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
The indoor thing.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
People aren't into that, they're into the outdoor thing.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, especially when the weather gets better too. Yeah, I mean,
let's let's switch it up to like, let's focus on
what is happening. I saw, I saw you post something
on social I don't know if this already passed that
gelato spot something happening to the.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Story with the gelato thing is when this happened, the
owners posted their sales for like what their sales are
like on a Thursday versus what their sales are like
on ourt hop, and it was like, I don't remember
the exact numbers, but it was like ten times, you know,
ten times more on our hob And so I was thinking, well,
(33:36):
it is my birthday, Like what can I do as
like a sort of a form of sort of protests
but also just like as a you know, community good
will thing. So what I said was, Okay, I'll buy
you know, two hundred fifty dollars worth of gelato for
anybody who comes in and says it's my causes birthday.
Just take a way to help them on that day,
right then also get back to the community a little bit.
But also hopefully someone sees that and recognizes, like, you know,
(33:59):
you are hurting these small bitusinesses and it takes people
like this doing maybe some extreme measures to help them
because so many vendors down there, so many businesses and
when I say businesses, I mean that's just our food trucks,
but like even Tyoga, right, this is their biggest day
of the month.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, these Thursdays is like their money maker. And then
you just take that away from it away, especially.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
With two weeks.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Notice, right, that's one thing to be like, yeah, yeah,
you just can't do this. It's it's gonna be rough.
So that's kind of the point I'm trying to make
with that. So if you get this out right away,
it's from one to eight, you can get in there
until I mean, first come, first serve obviously, So we're
doing that. I'm doing that just as like a a thing,
just to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
This new gelato spot is just around the corner of
Warner's Theaters.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
It's on Tallow Me up next to Fulton Strea Coffee.
If you know where Fulton and Shake Cofee is.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Yeah, so go go support that.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
There's there's there are a few places who have stepped
up and are trying to bring vendors inside. So like
c MAAC for instance, has I think a good amount
of vendors inside JSA, which is kind of right over
by the park. They they I think, have a good
amount of vendors inside. So I think that's what what's
if just me looking at this objectively and saying, Okay,
what's the move for art hop in the future, It's
(35:07):
gonna be finding these indoor spaces where a bunch of
vendors can set up and you know, create like indoor
type things.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
And then you're gonna be at ty Yoga.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
I'll be at Taigo, but I'm gonna be just be
walking around like check it all out. Streets will be
at t streets will be across there's a there's like
this old auto care a lot that the people that
own sun Steria Warehouse they bought it and they're gonna
turn it into like another micro business hub thing. And
so for right now, they're gonna let uschoose a lot
this week. Around the corner. There's a lot on Veness
(35:38):
that is attached to the thrift stores over there, and
there's an artist guy who's turning that into kind of
like a little event because it's private property. Alley in
the Valley is still kind of doing their thing, and
that one spot, we'll see what happens there. They partnered
up with the Rose which you know over there on
on Venice and they're doing like an indoor thing. So
(35:58):
there's definitely some places that are doing into things.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, and you know, so that would be sort of
the Cocky move I guess.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Well, I think Cocky's is doing their later thing that
they always do that, okay, but I think some people,
some people are trying to bring in Mez Kyle I
think is one that they are like, hey, if you're
a vendor and you want to come set up inside,
you know, so some of the people are doing that, all.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Right, Well, I mean, yeah, that's cool. Businesses trying to
help other businesses and you know, trying to keep this
thing stay afloat. At the end of the day, though,
like the people need to be out there, you know,
that's what's going to make this thing work. And I
just feel, not to be negative, I just feel like
people's energy is there there they might be over it,
and that's what sucks, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
I think it feels again if you feel defeated, if
you feel like you've been turned away or cast aside,
or like hey, they don't want to hear anymore.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I think that's the that's the.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Worst part, right, Yeah, exactly, you're saying that to you know,
thousands of young people, because this is a lot of
young people. And I think that's the big difference in
my mind, is that a lot of these a lot
of these people of this age, when I was that age,
I didn't want to do They hated forres though, right,
I can't wait to.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Get out of here. Not to mention downtown fres though,
especially down there.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
And now it's seems like the younger generation is like, no,
this place is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna get which is what we wanted.
But no, that's too much.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Create a bunch of super villains man like them away.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, yeah, funny speaking of Fresnel Street eats, anything new
or you guys still doing your rounds. You guys are
doing some amazing still doing all.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
The usual stuff. You know, we're river Park every Saturday now,
so that's always a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, that the river Park one is such a good Yeah,
I like that.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Oh, as I'm sure you guys are. I mean, I know,
I think you're involved. Were getting ready for football season,
so uh, Bulldog Boulevard over with President Stock.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, I think you're gonna be DJ.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Yeah, We've got stuff every day. So follow our Instagram
you'll see all look at our stories to our stories
are every day. We're just loaded up with all of
our spots. We got some cool new things that hopefully
we can announce soon that are in the works.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Speaking of announcing soon, anything you could spill for Taco
Truck throw Down, I.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Will say this, we have some offers out on some
artists that I would be really excited to tell you
about if they are accepted.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
All right, are.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
They sold the twenty dollars ticket thing or is that
done already?
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I think it's still going okay, or it's I think
it's twenty five or something like that. Yeah, But I
would say, I mean, I don't know, I don't know how,
I don't know what are how close we are on
a sort of a bigger name. But if we get
that person, I would say, you're twenty five twenty dollars
ticket as well worth it?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Oh man a November the next the top number nine. Yeah,
looking forward to it. Man, Well, we appreciate you just
shedding some light.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Honestly, I'm happy to sit and explain it to people,
because like, yeah, I think I haven't even sat and
like just explained it to anybody like this, and it
makes a lot, Like you have to know a lot
of stuff because somebody yesterday was like, the city's just
trying to do this so they can charge admission, and
I'm like, I trust me, They're not doing that.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, Like that's not what anybody's trying to do.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
It's one of those things where people hear and the
more that gets passed on, the information kind of gets muddled.
So I'm glad you were kind of here to kind
of clean things up because I myself didn't even really
know exactly what was going on.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I understand that, like there is a frozen WRTS council
and there is a down Yeah, yeah, one of the
roles that these people have, and why city has nothing
to do with any of this until recently. And you know,
I mean somebody was trying to tell me or didn't
tell me, but I checked them on it. Like street
Eats is in charge of every food truck or art hop.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I'm like, no, we're not so all right man.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Well yeah, let's see what happens tonight. Go support Go
support Happy birthday you and yeah until next time.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Right, Yeah? Man, this could get me for our podcast.
This could give me for our podcast What Up on Gizzo?
That is John Magic and we are back.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
All right.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
This is one of those special episodes where we're actually
recording it and we're gonna release it on the same
day because the topic has something to do with the
downtown Fresnel art hop and today is August first, as
the recording of this podcast, and so if you're listening
to this after it might sound out of context, but
the main topic will be about the whole downtown Fresno
(00:33):
news about art hop changing. And we brought one of
our friends guests, our special guest today. He's been on
before when we first started interviewing guests on our podcast,
so it's good to have him back. And he's very
knowledgeable in today's topic about art hop. He's one of
(00:55):
the founders of Fresne Street Eats. He's also one of
the originators of the Taco Truck throw Down. And if
I'm not mistaken, it's your birthday today, ladies, and Mike
Oz is here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Back in the building. Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
First, Sam and heck that I'm up.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, happy birthday first and foremost. But yeah, let's just
get to this. The whole art hop thing, because today's
the first day that it's going to have its new style.
Can we go back for the people that are listening,
uh and are not familiar to art hop, can you
tell them real quick about art hop?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Honestly, I feel like most people don't even understand how
art hop works. What what I would love to do
is just break down for you, like how it all
even works, right, and sort of who the players are,
just to set the table for all the other stuff
that's gonna happen. Yeah, okay, So art hop is a
thing that I believe it could happen anywhere, right, there's
art hops in other cities. So in Fresno it was
(01:56):
started by the Fresnow Arts Council, and they're sort of
a collective of you know people that that you know,
promote the arts. So they promer art galleries, they promer artists,
stuff like that. So they started art hop back in
like nineteen ninety six, I believe, maybe before that, but
like back in the nineties. So they are they are
the presiding entity over art hop, like they are in
(02:18):
charge of art hop. But as art hop kind of grew,
you know, it's changed over the year. So I remember
going to art hop in like the early like two thousands, right,
so like two thousand and three, two thousand and four,
and at that point, like it was mostly in galleries.
You would start to get your that's when we started
to see your first sort of like outdoor stuff. But
a lot of times I was, you know, twenty four
(02:40):
twenty five years old. People my age would go and
we weren't really interested in like art on the walls
and galleries, right, You go in there because they'd have
free wine and they'd have free food sometimes, and then
you'd go to a couple of the galleries. You'd be like, oh,
that's pretty cool, like whatever, and then you'd go somewhere
to a bar, you'd go party somewhere. Right, That's kind
of like what art hop was, And honestly, I feel
like that's still kind of what art hop is, right like,
(03:01):
And so all these people that say it's changed, like,
in my mind, it hasn't really changed all that much,
just changed like where you.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Go so real quick has also changed with the amount
of people's.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
That's probably like what change, they just got bigger.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Uh So, So the Arts Council had always kind of
been in charge of art hob But to be sort
of an art hop venue, you have to sign up
and you pay them like dues, right, which I think
right now it's around two hundred bucks, maybe a little
bit less. So let's use an example of like Tioguskoy, right,
who we work with. Tierguskoya is signed up as an
official art hop venue. Then after that, the Arts Council
really doesn't have much to do with like what they
(03:36):
do at their place. So like Tioga, they can bring
in whatever artists they want. They could come to us
and get food trucks and they could do all of
those things. So the Arts Council really just is like, Okay,
you're part of our thing, and if you need services,
like if you come to them and say, hey, I'm
looking for an artist, they might be able to refer
you out or like hey, you know, can we do this?
Can you promote this? And then the Arts Council kind
of promotes the galleries and stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Right real quick, let me let me just so I
could be clear during art hop Tyoga needs to pay
the council.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
It's like a once a year thing. Oh wow, Okay,
it's like a membership kind of thing. Right. That was
like every third Ye it's like to be like a
member of art hop every year. So that's how the
URS Council kind of sustained it's got it. So then
what happens is, you know, these like outdoor things start
to pop up, and you know, I've heard it explain
that a lot of the a lot of people who
are artists, right, and artists is a very wide term,
(04:25):
don't feel like they're accepted in the galleries because galleries
are sort of a different thing, and I'm just gonna
set up outside and start selling stuff, right, And so
that starts happening.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So these are like the the booth that starts setting
up on the sidewalk, and some.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Of them are legitimately painters or whatever, right they feel like, well,
I'm not a gallery person, I'm you know whatever. And
then that leads to more and more of that, and
then you start getting people selling trinkets and shirts, you.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
And so it's at some point, like I would say
pre COVID was when you started to see a lot
of stuff happening in the street yep. And so at
that point though, it's kind of up to the art
the Arts Council kind of just as the oversight on
the venues and the venues kind of do their own thing.
And if you wanted to go out there and sell something,
just to find a street corner or partner with the
venue and say hey, can I just set up outside
(05:15):
your place? You know that's between you and them, right, Like,
nobody really is caring about that. The city is not
involved in this at all at this point.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Right, city they're not paying a yearly.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
No city has well, I mean, City Hall is an
art hop venue, so maybe the city actually plays, but
I mean, it wasn't like the city, city council or
anything like that decided what goes on in art hop or
at any say in art hop, right, which is as
we're gonna get to that sort of you know what's
changing now?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Can I Can I just paint the picture real quick
of because I live in downtown and uh, that's when
I started seeing the masses. It's a block party. I
would I live right on Fulton and I would just
look outside and thousands of people are walking the streets
and yeah, on the sidewalk, it's just booths of from
(06:02):
food to art to little What are the things that
you buy for the crocs, anything you could think of
someone selling something and the energy. I was like, this
is amazing. Music everywhere, food trucks everywhere. There's a park,
like right near my apartment complex. I remember one year
(06:22):
there was salsa dancing there. It is a vibe. It
is such real quick. There outside my apartment complex, somebody
was doing a BATCHI a whole full grill set up
and selling stuff. So it was.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Probably a vibe, that's what I'm saying, right, so that
stuff starts happening. I remember being down there and like,
you know, again the same area, there was somebody that
was in one of those apartments that's also like a
loft and you know, like a mixed use place, and
there was a band that was just playing you know,
in front of the like on the doorstep, and the
crowd was like blocking the street.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So you get stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, the teasy guys and myself we DJed at one
of a balcony and that. Yeah, it's just such a
great energy.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
So all that stuff was always like, yeah, you just
do whatever right, like and if you're a if you're
a if you have a business or whatever. People just
started doing that and like started building all these other
things around and so around the pandemic, I think is
when the city started to look around and be like,
all right, look like we might be running into some
issues here.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So I remember, as we.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Start to come out of the pandemic, I get on
a phone call with the city manager at the time,
a bunch of other people at the city and some
other folks, and they're like, Hey, this is what we
want to do. We want to create these two block
party kind of ideas. One is the one in the
Brewer District that we manage, and one was over by
Warner's Theater, where we're going to shut down the streets
or you can shut down the streets like it was
up to us to do it and sort of have
(07:44):
some semblance of like order right, like you you can
curate the stuff, you can bring in the food trucks, whatever,
and here's here's how we're going to do it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
We're going to walk you through the process.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
On getting the road closure and you know, you got
to get insurance, you got to pay this. And so
that's the first time I ever shut down the street.
And it was you know, sort of at the urging
of the city because they wanted to initiate some structure, okay,
And so that's how we ended up with that block
party in the brewery district. There was the one in
Warner's and then all the all the businesses in the street.
I couldn't get along about it.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So it stopped.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Okay, I don't I don't recall a street closure there there.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Was for a while. And so DFP was Downtown Friends
of the Partnership there another entity we have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
They were involved in that.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
So DFP is there like a a an association of
property owners downtown in a certain area. Right, so they
pay basically, they tax themselves and then DFP provides marketing
and events and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So DFP for a while has kind of been like, hey,
I think we should be in charge of our hop,
right because we have more of a like the arts
Council kind of threw up his hands and said, Hey,
all this other stuff that's happened in that's not our
We're not in charge of that. That's not our problem.
We're not going to patrol it, we're not going to
be the police. And so you started to run into
this thing where they only cared about the galleries and
nobody cared about anything else that would go yeah, and
(08:55):
for the most part it was cool, right, there wasn't
a lot of problems. But as we've rest the problem
became that like nobody's in charge. And so that's kind
of how we got to today. Right. So you have
you know, the city then stepping in and being like,
I don't know, I think this needs to change, and
the Arts Council kind of being like, well, you know, we.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Don't have anything to do with anything that's happened in
the street.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
And the people like me who's like, hey, we're doing
everything right, you know, we have all your permits, all
your stuff, like, there's no reason we should get shut down.
And there's a few other there's like four or five
people like me that have permits and do things the
right way, you know, like Alley in the Valley, mos Fresno,
Bad Kids Club, and so we have our little spaces
that we pay for permits for and the insurance and
(09:39):
everything that goes into all that, and so we all
got shut down too. And that's sort of where I
was like, this is not fair, right, because if you're
targeting all the people who, let's say, you know, because
I've seen people out there on the corner selling you know,
tall cans out of a vocation, right, like all of
us know that's illegal. Yeah, nobody's enforcing it though, so whatever,
(10:00):
I haven't seen it with my own hands, but I
haven't seen in eyes.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I've seen. I saw that, I've.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Seen people they I've heard that they're people out there
selling edibles the kids, you know, and again, so those
are things that at some point somebody needs.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
To take charge of. Uh.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
So that's sort of how we got to where we
got to a couple of weeks ago where they said
we're just gonna shut it all down for the month
of August, right, And at that point I was like, man,
you can't do this two weeks out. You can't do
it to everybody. And in my head, the example was like,
if you see people speeding on the freeway, you don't
pull over all the cars. You pull over the cars
that are that are speeding, right, you don't give take
(10:33):
us to everyone. And so that's kind of where where
things got, right. So that was that press conference that
Miguel Aarius had. As I came to find out later,
the mayor was on vacation and didn't really even fully
know what was going on.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Geez.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Then the mayor gets back and they're like, all right,
we gotta figure we got to figure this whole thing
out right, which kind of brings us to this week where.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So the thing when I heard, you know, it became viral.
Everyone was posting about this announcement he makes, and the
thing that caught me off guard was him saying, nothing
has happened all these years, all these years, nothing has happened.
But we're gonna prevent that. But I'm a big believer
of it. Like, if it ain't broke, don't fix this
(11:14):
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah. What I always liked about our hop is like
how organic it kind of grew and how it was
kind of for the people by the people essentially, and
then it just feels like every time somebody decides to
step in, that's when problems start happening. That's kind of
like what I feel.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, same Now you bring up the quote unquote allegedly
illegal sales of you know, when you when you I see,
I didn't know about that. Okay, I could see where.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
They might want to regulate regulate that, but I'm.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
With you with the people that are doing it the
right way, why are they getting.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Or you just go and you just go and regulate that, right,
you go and get rid of that person. You can't
do that, Like it seems pretty easy, Like that's why
you have police and code enforcement and all these kind
of things to be So what I felt like happened
was like everybody just didn't pay attention for a long time,
and then now they're like, uh, can I cuss on this?
Like shit, we gotta pay attention and oh man, what
(12:13):
are we gonna do? And they're all scrambling to figure
it out, and it's like, well, if it were me,
just just first of all, go address the problems. Right
if I look at it like this, right, if you
have this whole I don't know, five or six blocks
or whatever it is, well it's even more if you
go further down where you live ten blocks, right and say,
all right, well, look, we know that what Street's does
is good. We know that these places are all good.
(12:34):
So hey, we only got to worry about six blocks now, yeah,
and so let's let's focus on cleaning up these six
blocks and the next month let's do it again. Oh
you know, cool, Now we only have four blocks to
worry about. And the next month you only have two blocks.
You know, like that's how you progressively just sort of
fix the problem.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I agree to just everybody, Yeah, they there should have
been a better plan instead of like, oh, in two weeks,
we're shutting everyone down.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
And and I mean, so the give you some other
contexts some of this. There was I don't know, two
or three years ago, there was a meeting where the
Arts Council and its board of directors wanted to I
don't know, maybe they were just complaining, but they it
seemed like they wanted to take back control of art Hop.
But then they don't really have the resources to manage it, right,
So a bunch of us went to this meeting ready
(13:20):
to like argue with them. You know that you can't
take this away. You can't just like get rid of
all these people. And it definitely seems I mean, I'm
wearing the Tacos and Trinkets shirt. I don't know if
you guys read that quote from one of the downtown
business owners. That's like art hop just turned into tacos
and trinkets, And a lot of it seemed very like
class ish, like you know, old versus new, and sort
(13:42):
of this like we think art hop should be this.
Somebody said to me at this time, art hop should
be an event for sophisticated adults. And I'm like, art
hop is an event for whoever decides it's an event.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, that's that's what I say, granically for the people.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, I mean if people want to do the high
art thing, yeah, there's options for everyone.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That was the best part about it. Yeah, whoever wants
to be a part of it, I'm saying, and just
do it the right way.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
So this class has.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Been going on sort of like on the on the
d L a little bit for like three years now,
with the Arts Council trying to like, you know, we're
not happy with the way art hop is, right, but
we don't we don't really have the resources to fix it,
so I don't know. And then dfp's over here like, well,
you know, we we as the downtown people, see that
it needs something. Does somebody want to give us some
(14:26):
money and we can We'll be in charge of it,
And nobody gives them money and so so so this
they kind of just kicked the ball, you know, down
the road, down the road.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
And then eventually.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Miguel Alreace comes knocking and is like hear all you
And I mean, so I see from my from sitting
where I sit and knowing all the things I know,
I see how that happens, right, Like eventually somebody with
some authority has.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
To come in.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
And it's kind of like being a parent and telling
your kids like, hey, do this thing.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I'm going to take away your your video games. Hey
do this.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
I've asked you three times, take away your thing. You
take away the video games?
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Like why did you take away my video game? You know?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
And I mean, I see it, right, but I also
feel like it could have been done differently. But I
wonder also behind the scenes, like you know, who's pressuring
who to say? You know, is the arts Council, Like, hey,
we really want we want to take back control of
our hop because this is our thing. We started this,
and they definitely have a pride about that. And that's true,
right they started it. But like it's me, I would say,
(15:25):
it's turned into something new. The younger generation has bought
in and adopted it. Yeah, it turned it into something different,
maybe better than what we maybe may not better, different
than what we thought it was gonna be. Yeah, but
that's cool, right, because ten or fifteen thousand people are
coming down.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Here when it was maybe, you know, seven hundred or.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So. Let's go to you know, today's August first, it's
gonna be the first starb That's that's changed. What when
I look out into my balcony, am I not gonna
see the sidewalks full of people walking up and down?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I mean the people is the biggest question.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
I feel like, So you're not supposed to in theory,
you're not going to see all You're not going to
see the guy with theh habbachi grill on the street.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
No tense, you're not supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
You're not supposed to suppos to.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
So what I'm going to be upset about is if
they kicked out all of our legit vendors and then
they just let all the whoever vendors go up and yeah,
because it's like we're all doing it right. But I've
I've already seen pictures that cod enforceman is out this
morning because people get out there and set up art
hof for like no especially like near the brewery district.
They get out there at like nine eight o'clock trying
to get a space. Like it's like a Green Bay
(16:34):
Packer's tailgate or something. Right, people areut there like twelve
hours early.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I mean there's gonna be no vendors out there
in the street.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
There's not supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Not supposed to be supposed to be even the people
that you said did it right, nobody, They just didn't
want nobody out there.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
And then so like any of the any of the
stuff that happens like on city property, so streets, you know,
streets would be city property, sidewalks like the stuff we're doing.
We're back inside Tyoga, which is sort of what we
did before, and it just would be back in the day.
It just got so crowded in there that we're like
we gotta spread out, spread it all out. So it
was put in the street. So we're gonna have We're
gonna have like four food trucks and some some artists
(17:08):
and vendors and stuff inside inside Tayoga. So we can
do that because it's on private property. There's a lot
across the street. This private property. We're gonna have a
couple of food trucks. So it's not gonna be like
what it normally is in the Brew District, but it's
gonna be like close. I don't know what else, you know,
who else is planning?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
What I know?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
The guy that does Alley in the valley at least
is said on Instagram he's.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Still gonna do it.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
He's not calling it art hop, he's calling it first Thursdays.
And but it mean it's gonna be on city property.
So it'll be interesting to see if the city actually
goes out and enforces it or if they just say,
like cause there was I don't know, maybe eight months ago. Again,
this whole kind of thing has been going on for
a while. They got Code Enforcement ABC. This is after
the the guy because literally the guy with the beer
(17:49):
in the ice chests, like a bunch of people saw
that and they were like, we can't have this. So
ABC came out, you know, alcohol, alcohol beverage Control, the county,
the city.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
All that can't knock us.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And they went out and.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Just started trying to you know, enforce things or whatever
and what they should. What I heard back was like
Code Enforcements like, oh, people are being mean to us,
like the vendors, because the vendors are like, you can't
kick me out of here, and the quote Enforcement's like,
oh well, okay, yeah, just back down. And it's like, well,
now they think they could do whatever, So you're not
gonna have any teeth if you go out and try
to tell anybody else to leave. So I'm really curious
(18:23):
see what happens today. If the vendors are just gonna
be like, you can't tell me nothing, or if PD
is actually gonna like kick them out, you know, that's
gonna be interesting and it's funny. I mean, this is
off topic, but it exactly mirrors the entire conversation about
the homeless population too, right, because that's also going on
right now, and it's like you're just gonna round people
up and kick them out and somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And so the city is doing.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
A lot of this right now, and it's it's hard
to it's hard to like look at it and be like, man,
this makes a lot of sense, because it just I
don't know that it does.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
So you you agree with it should have been regulated,
there should have been somebody in charge, but just the
way they're going about it is just wrong, I think.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
So I think I think it needed somebody to make
sure that we're.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Not selling beers out of I think that's fair. Yeah, well,
I mean, just why can't you just pull up and
you know, ask these people do you have the right documents,
you have, the insurance you have, and then that's how
you regulate it. And it could still go. I don't
understand why everybody.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Those food vendors don't right, Yeah, And but I also
think that you know, I'm I'm of the camp of
like people will set up right outside our event in
a food truck or just has a tent or whatever,
And I mean we could go over there and tell
them like, hey, get out of here, but we don't.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Like.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Instead, we'd rather be like, hey, so you got a
food truck, Okay, cool, Well here's what it takes to
join us, Like if you want to be legit with
residence d It's like, yeah, that's my approach to doing things.
And that I think the city in the beginning sort
of took that approach of like, well, you know, if
you want to if you have this food standing, you
want to become legitimate, here's.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
What you got to do.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
So education rather than enforcement, yeah, which I think is
the right way to do that kind of thing. So
I would say, if you're if you're out there and
you're trying like if you're trying to be a legitimate business,
Like my goal is to open up a restaurant, so
right now, I just got this this grill in this
tent or whatever. But like, yeah, I'll get a business
license and all the awesome, fantastic you're helping that person
(20:08):
on their on their journey if you are, and I
know you guys know this because you live in the
same world I do. If you're one of those people
that's standing out a concert outside of a concert trying
to sell bootleg T shirts because there's twenty thousand people inside,
like those are the same kind of people that.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Show up at our hop, right, They're just hustlers.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, I'm just trying to sell something because there's twenty
thousand people here, and so if those people are doing
something illegal, then I would say, yeah, like get rid
of them. If they're just like, hey, I'm trying to
sell like a bootleg T shirt whatever, I don't I
don't really care. But if you're if you're doing something
that is that is illegal, I would be like, somebody
needs to enforce that.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
All the things that you're saying right now. Did you
bring this up to them.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yes, And was there a response to that.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
So this is this is the other part that we
haven't gone into it. So the big, the big argument
from the city is this, uh we we mean the
we be in the city. The city will tell you
we don't have the police presence to handle our hop
as it is on Thursdays. There's too many people and
there's too much other crime in President on a Thursday
(21:04):
that we don't have enough cops. Basically, if something goes wrong,
right or if.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, but the thing that was correct me if I'm wrong,
didn't they say, like, yeah, it's true, all these years,
nothing's happened.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, there's black a couple of random you know, like
but it's also the kind of stuff that that happens
on a Thursday. Like somebody was stabbed, right, but it
wasn't in during art hot proper. It was like hours
later kind of near downtown.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I mean, and we're happy to was a Christmas
tree lane. There was like a stab me, you know
what I mean. So it's just like it's stuff happens.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
But so so, but there is there is definitely there
was definitely a desire from the city to kind of
split the events, and I know the Arts Council has
been big in that, so that's kind of why I
wonder what happened behind closed doors. So I mean, as
a I guess there was. There was a meeting on
Tuesday that I went to along with a lot of
the other event organizers, some downtown business owners, the mayor,
(21:55):
Miguel Arrius, people like that, and they kind of rolled
out their plan of like we're gonna do art hop
is going to be indoors only the Arts Council is
going to be in charge of it. The quote was,
and even I'll pull up my phone and read it
to you exactly because I wrote it down. It was
like that we want to return art hop to uh,
preserve art hop as it was originally intended. So they
(22:17):
want art hop to be what it was, what it
originally intended to be. And then we wanted to take
street party part of it and make it a different
event on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Uh. I don't even know what to say to that.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And so that's where we're at right now.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
That's and they rolled that out also to the public
last night at a different at a different meeting. So
I think today what you're going to see today is
sort of like this weird kind of in between, you.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Know, kind of thing and transition some people are you
feel like some people are still going to be out
there hustling and setting up.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I mean, but I think people are going to keep
doing that regardless, right because the people that the people
that are doing that, I don't think are paying attention
to social media or the news or you know, they're
not like, like, I trucks hit me up today like hey,
how do we get into art hop? And I'm like,
do you live under a rock?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Because you know that park that's near my apartment complex
and with those uh everyone says the umbrella, the that
place was packed with food trucks and people. You're telling
me there won't be anyone out there that is that is.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
A thing that So you guys know Tony from Vinder
Village he works with us. Yeah, yeah, so he operates
that like we helped him get to permit and sort
of he operates that as like a vendor village street.
He's collaboration. So yeah, that's not that's not allowed. Oh
those permits that we have for those events, they're they're
just not honoring them.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Oh man, it's this area is perfect for I know, yeah,
like family friendly.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And like we could get that permit, for instance, on
a Friday night and do that every Friday night if
we you know, like no issue with.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
That, but they just don't want it done on our heart.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
That is so that that's what it's gonna suck for
me because the first Thursdays of every month, just the
energy when I go home after work, because the people
start coming out at five pm and then I go
out my balcony thousands of it's so cool to see.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
This is like what upsets me because it's very like
a Fresno thing that happens. Right, Like we we try
to have like our own identity. We try to be
our own people. We try to grow things like for
the people organically. You know, I've always been somebody I
was born and raised here and I always you know,
everyone just talked about how bad downtown was. It was
the trash, no one goes there. And then you know,
when they built the stadium down there, it was like, okay,
(24:31):
this is going to bring back downtown and then all
these apartments. Yeah, all the past few years, like downtown
is like where it's at, it's popping. It's grown organically
the people. I've grown it people like Mike oz of
how the situation and everything's going good and then here
comes the city and says, oh nope. And it's just
like every time we have something like we could just
never have nice things. That's saying right, like Freze could
just never have nice things?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Athers me.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Is that you know, I've been here. I'm not from here, right,
but I've been here long enough. Now, I've been here
for twenty years. I grew up, I came here to
work for the be right, So I was writing about
like downtown and sort of I immediately when I got
here was like, Yo, this place is this place could
be really dope, and so I kind of started to
you know, push that like that was sort of one
of the things I was into as a journalist, was
like trying to get people to go downtown. And I've
(25:14):
seen so many different ideas that that people have invested
money and time in that just don't work, right, start,
start and stop and all this thing, and I'm like,
this is finally the thing that worked.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah exactly, be like no.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
And I it seems to me like like let's say
that you're you know, you're you're a little kid and
every year you ask for a pony, right, and like
fifteen years you don't get a pony, and then finally
you get a pony, and the first time the pony
takes a shit, you don't want to clean it up
and you don't want a pony anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
What's going on? Like, you guys, you got.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Everything you wanted. Finally you got people coming downtown.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I mean, figure it out instead of.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
It's a scene down there and they're just like, nah no,
we don't want to sing.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Man.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I feel like there has to be there had to
be other solutions, Like I completely understand. So this is
the other thing I didn't get to right on the Wednesday.
So this is why they're they're pitching Wednesdays pretty hard.
Is that they say that they have an excess of
police officers on Wednesdays because there's a lot more crime
on Thursday that there is on Wednesday. But from my perspective,
so if they could come to me and say, Okay,
you want to keep your Thursday thing cool, well you're
(26:21):
gonna have to hire off duty police and pay them
over time or whatever, and that's gonna cost like a
thousand dollars. We have security at our event, which we
just paid normal security rates and that's fine. And again
that's why I feel like we should be We're different
than just the sort of open streets where people just
setting stuff up. But if they come in and tell
every event organizer, like, hey, you guys need to split
up like twenty thousand dollars in security costs, I mean
(26:44):
PD costs, Like that'll kill our hot right there too. Yeah, right,
So the city is and I think they're being honest
here trying to figure out a way to do it
in a way that they don't pass all those costs
onto us, that they can eat the cost of of
like PD enforcement and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Which I think a city should do.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
You should that you should be doing that in the
interest of having people assemble in your downtown. So that's
that's another reason for the Wednesday. But I guess the
point that I was gonna get to was, uh, actually
I forgot proud to go for it.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
But yeah, but I mean, now they're gonna split it
in two days. So they want, you know, the art
hop on Thursday, and then if they want the street vendors,
that's gonna be like on a Wednesday, we don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
We don't know what Wednesday yet. There's gonna be a
meeting tomorrow to kind of talk more about this.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
We'll see, you know, someone's going to create something down
the line, and like, but it's.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Not organic now, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
What I worry about is like, you know, the the
when they came to us about, hey, we're gonna do
these little block party things. You know, we're gonna put
you you're in charge of this block. I mean that
was only three or four years ago, and that was
a different city manager. Different you know, same mayor, but
different city manager. And that was their idea then. So
like let's say we do this thing, and three years
from now they're like, oh, well we actually don't want
(27:57):
to do Wednesdays anymore now, we want to do something else,
you know. And it's like it took twenty years to
build what we built with our hop.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well, I'm hoping that you know, there's these solutions that
you've already brought up that you would like to see
hopefully slowly things can change again. But do you feel
like that energy will be where people will be over it?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I don't know. I mean, tonight would be kind of
a good test. I guess, do you see this this
kind of fading away or do you think they're going
to stay on top of this.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Don't I don't know that I see it fading away.
I mean I think that it's become such a big deal.
An example that I would maybe use is, I don't know,
three or four months ago, there was there's there's I
can always been complaints in the tower about you know
a lot of the vendors that are out, you know,
really late and sort of being in the way, and
(28:52):
there's all the restaurants there. But you go to the
tower like Friday, Saturday, Thursday night, I mean, there's tons
of food trucks and just tends all the same kind
of stuff, right, And so they went in there and
they said, okay, we're gonna have this new sort of
thing for vendors, and it they did it, I don't know,
a couple weeks and then it kind of just went away.
But I don't that didn't definitely did not get as
much attention as this. So I would be shocked if
(29:15):
it just went back to the way it was in
like three weeks, you know, or because it is a
once a month thing, so I feel like, you know,
something like the tower we're talking about every Thursday, Friday,
Saturday is a little harder to patrol.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
But I don't know, like what would they do.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
For instance, Let's say if people just started coming out
every day, right, it's just like you know, basically, you know,
there's too much for code enforcement to handle.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Then what happens.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
And so there's a lot of different aspects of this.
But I do feel like the city is if they're
going to commit resources to Wednesday, which they're saying they
are they have, then they have an interest in making
Wednesday's work. And I brought that up too. I'm like,
you guys are not in the event business. Yeah, like
you know, are you gonna you're gonna engage people like us?
And are you gonna pay us? Or are you still
can do this for free? And you know, there's all
(29:59):
kinds of questions there that we haven't figured out. And
I mean, I do think that there is in a
for the people by the people kind of way, a
chance to maybe imagine what would we do if we
could you know, an ideal world, and hope that you know,
we can do that. Like one of the one of
the Brewer re district bar owners we've talked for a
while and the brewer restrict about like can we just
(30:19):
get open carry, so just even on that block, so
you could walk you can walk out of full Circle
with a beer and walk into Tiogo with you know
where you could walk out of Moderates with a mixed drin,
could take it over to Tyoga and all that would
be legal. And if you do that, I mean that's
a game changer, right.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
One of the one of the bar owners is like, well,
can we do that on Wednesdays? Because that would that
would be cool, That would be different, you know. And
if downtown Fresno is like the one place where you
could walk around with a beer in the street like
New Orleans, then awesome downtown.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
For that, right.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
But if our whole thing is like, oh, we don't
have police, if we don't have diffrastructure, then what's going
to happen?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Then?
Speaker 4 (30:52):
You know, So it's it's just this kind of chicken
egg thing in that regard. But I think there has
to be something different about it, right, and it has
to be like, you know, beyond what we're doing now. Yeah,
it has to be cooler than that in order to
kind of re engage the people.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
And like you said, like these things take time. I mean,
look how long it took for you know, our hop
to pop off and trying to start a Wednesday. I
don't know, that's tough.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
How long it takes took us to get fredjust to
what Fred jus is right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah, that's true when it comes to Okay, let's just
kind of focus on tonight. Are you is your spirit
down about it? Or is your spirit kind of high
hoping people show up to tie?
Speaker 4 (31:27):
My spirit is way down man. Yeah, Like I feel
I feel very defeated.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
And I feel that energy is like people are feeling
that energy, and I feel like that alone is you know,
going to make people not even want to show up.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
I've seen on social media like I'm not going and
rest in peace of art up like and for me
for someone that lives down there, like man, Like, like
I said, I love energy and.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Yeah, and the reality is it's hard to get people
downtown as it is.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yes, you could just.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
I'm always surprised about the every Thursday. I'm like, why
is there thousands?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
You can just go to River.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Park or you can go to Campus Point, yeah, Clovis
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Man, well, yeah, tonight's gonna be uh yeah, we'll see
how it goes tonight. We're gonna see how it kind
of changes through each month hopefully things kind of I
don't want to say get back to normal or.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
We're looking to you.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
It's very much of a wait and see, Like I'm wait,
I'm approaching this almost like it's it's the super Bowl, right,
and I'm just I'm just gonna I just want to watch.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
And see what happens.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Yeah, because I don't have any I don't have any
basis of whatever, Like I'm gonna sit out there with
some tacos or something and just kind of like observe, Yeah,
because I have to see it with my own eyes
before I can gauge, like what's gonna happen next, Like
are people still gonna come out and hey, we're just
gonna go do whatever we're gonna do, or are they
gonna be like, no, we're not going to your our galleries.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
We're here for the street party.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
And if nobody's there all of a sudden, like people
are like, oh crap, they.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
The indoor thing.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
People aren't into that, they're into the outdoor thing.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, especially when the weather gets better too. Yeah, I mean,
let's let's switch it up to like, let's focus on
what is happening. I saw, I saw you post something
on social I don't know if this already passed that
gelato spot something happening to the.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Story with the gelato thing is when this happened, the
owners posted their sales for like what their sales are
like on a Thursday versus what their sales are like
on ourt hop, and it was like, I don't remember
the exact numbers, but it was like ten times, you know,
ten times more on our hob And so I was thinking, well,
(33:36):
it is my birthday, Like what can I do as
like a sort of a form of sort of protests
but also just like as a you know, community good
will thing. So what I said was, Okay, I'll buy
you know, two hundred fifty dollars worth of gelato for
anybody who comes in and says it's my causes birthday.
Just take a way to help them on that day,
right then also get back to the community a little bit.
But also hopefully someone sees that and recognizes, like, you know,
(33:59):
you are hurting these small bitusinesses and it takes people
like this doing maybe some extreme measures to help them
because so many vendors down there, so many businesses and
when I say businesses, I mean that's just our food trucks,
but like even Tyoga, right, this is their biggest day
of the month.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, these Thursdays is like their money maker. And then
you just take that away from it away, especially.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
With two weeks.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Notice, right, that's one thing to be like, yeah, yeah,
you just can't do this. It's it's gonna be rough.
So that's kind of the point I'm trying to make
with that. So if you get this out right away,
it's from one to eight, you can get in there
until I mean, first come, first serve obviously, So we're
doing that. I'm doing that just as like a a thing,
just to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
This new gelato spot is just around the corner of
Warner's Theaters.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
It's on Tallow Me up next to Fulton Strea Coffee.
If you know where Fulton and Shake Cofee is.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Yeah, so go go support that.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
There's there's there are a few places who have stepped
up and are trying to bring vendors inside. So like
c MAAC for instance, has I think a good amount
of vendors inside JSA, which is kind of right over
by the park. They they I think, have a good
amount of vendors inside. So I think that's what what's
if just me looking at this objectively and saying, Okay,
what's the move for art hop in the future, It's
(35:07):
gonna be finding these indoor spaces where a bunch of
vendors can set up and you know, create like indoor
type things.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
And then you're gonna be at ty Yoga.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
I'll be at Taigo, but I'm gonna be just be
walking around like check it all out. Streets will be
at t streets will be across there's a there's like
this old auto care a lot that the people that
own sun Steria Warehouse they bought it and they're gonna
turn it into like another micro business hub thing. And
so for right now, they're gonna let uschoose a lot
this week. Around the corner. There's a lot on Veness
(35:38):
that is attached to the thrift stores over there, and
there's an artist guy who's turning that into kind of
like a little event because it's private property. Alley in
the Valley is still kind of doing their thing, and
that one spot, we'll see what happens there. They partnered
up with the Rose which you know over there on
on Venice and they're doing like an indoor thing. So
(35:58):
there's definitely some places that are doing into things.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, and you know, so that would be sort of
the Cocky move I guess.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Well, I think Cocky's is doing their later thing that
they always do that, okay, but I think some people,
some people are trying to bring in Mez Kyle I
think is one that they are like, hey, if you're
a vendor and you want to come set up inside,
you know, so some of the people are doing that, all.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Right, Well, I mean, yeah, that's cool. Businesses trying to
help other businesses and you know, trying to keep this
thing stay afloat. At the end of the day, though,
like the people need to be out there, you know,
that's what's going to make this thing work. And I
just feel, not to be negative, I just feel like
people's energy is there there they might be over it,
and that's what sucks, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
I think it feels again if you feel defeated, if
you feel like you've been turned away or cast aside,
or like hey, they don't want to hear anymore.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I think that's the that's the.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Worst part, right, Yeah, exactly, you're saying that to you know,
thousands of young people, because this is a lot of
young people. And I think that's the big difference in
my mind, is that a lot of these a lot
of these people of this age, when I was that age,
I didn't want to do They hated forres though, right,
I can't wait to.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Get out of here. Not to mention downtown fres though,
especially down there.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
And now it's seems like the younger generation is like, no,
this place is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna get which is what we wanted.
But no, that's too much.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Create a bunch of super villains man like them away.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, yeah, funny speaking of Fresnel Street eats, anything new
or you guys still doing your rounds. You guys are
doing some amazing still doing all.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
The usual stuff. You know, we're river Park every Saturday now,
so that's always a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, that the river Park one is such a good Yeah,
I like that.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Oh, as I'm sure you guys are. I mean, I know,
I think you're involved. Were getting ready for football season,
so uh, Bulldog Boulevard over with President Stock.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, I think you're gonna be DJ.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Yeah, We've got stuff every day. So follow our Instagram
you'll see all look at our stories to our stories
are every day. We're just loaded up with all of
our spots. We got some cool new things that hopefully
we can announce soon that are in the works.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Speaking of announcing soon, anything you could spill for Taco
Truck throw Down, I.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Will say this, we have some offers out on some
artists that I would be really excited to tell you
about if they are accepted.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
All right, are.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
They sold the twenty dollars ticket thing or is that
done already?
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I think it's still going okay, or it's I think
it's twenty five or something like that. Yeah, But I
would say, I mean, I don't know, I don't know how,
I don't know what are how close we are on
a sort of a bigger name. But if we get
that person, I would say, you're twenty five twenty dollars
ticket as well worth it?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Oh man a November the next the top number nine. Yeah,
looking forward to it. Man, Well, we appreciate you just
shedding some light.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Honestly, I'm happy to sit and explain it to people,
because like, yeah, I think I haven't even sat and
like just explained it to anybody like this, and it
makes a lot, Like you have to know a lot
of stuff because somebody yesterday was like, the city's just
trying to do this so they can charge admission, and
I'm like, I trust me, They're not doing that.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, Like that's not what anybody's trying to do.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
It's one of those things where people hear and the
more that gets passed on, the information kind of gets muddled.
So I'm glad you were kind of here to kind
of clean things up because I myself didn't even really
know exactly what was going on.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I understand that, like there is a frozen WRTS council
and there is a down Yeah, yeah, one of the
roles that these people have, and why city has nothing
to do with any of this until recently. And you know,
I mean somebody was trying to tell me or didn't
tell me, but I checked them on it. Like street
Eats is in charge of every food truck or art hop.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I'm like, no, we're not so all right man.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Well yeah, let's see what happens tonight. Go support Go
support Happy birthday you and yeah until next time.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Right, Yeah? Man, this could get me for our podcast.
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!