Changes for Frontier Days will bring out the Miss Manners in everyone
The Frontier Days festival is a few weeks away and politeness seems to be this year's theme.
Village officials decided to "ask people nicely" not to save spots too early along the Fourth of July parade route this year after a barrage of people complained that other people were putting down blankets days before the parade last year.
That politeness should carry over to new seating rules in front of the main stage acts. In years past, the front half of the area was reserved for blanket-only seating while the back part was for blankets and lawn chairs. This year, it will be open seating in both parts - which means the blanket people and the chair people will co-mingle for the first time in years.
"It's always been a difficult thing to police," said Bill Peery, the coordinator of entertainment for the festival. "This year it's going to be totally open. People should know wherever you sit or stand there could be people standing up and singing in front of you."
Regarding the parade, the village board decided in February it would rather ask people not to reserve spots too early than adopt a new parade route ordinance.
The board looked over several other options including doing nothing, extending the parade route to spread out the crowd and prohibiting saving spots by changing the village code. However, most trustees backed the idea of simply asking people not to save spots until 7 p.m. the night before the parade via an informational campaign.
"Publicity would remind persons that Arlington Heights is the 'the city of good neighbors,'" according to a village staff report. "If significant problems persist, it may be necessary to prohibit the reserving of space along a parade route per municipal code."
That means if this doesn't work, officials likely will change the code to prohibit saving spots next year, meaning village employees will pick up and throw away items like blankets which people use to save spots.
It should interesting to see if politeness wins.
Thank you for reading.
Sheila Ahern covers Arlington Heights. She can be reached at (847) 427-4563 or via e-mail at sahern@dailyherald.com.