I had to laugh when I heard about the meeting regarding the visitors center. People are all excited at the thought of getting 100,000 visitors a year, but this is contridictory to me. Why? Because the day after Halloween, I was approached by two Grove old timers (who are still movers and shakers in the Grove) who complained about the crowds on Halloween night.
These older guys, in their 70s, complained that too many young kids were here and they didn't like it. The young kids were those in their 20s and 30s, and probably 40s, who came out enjoy Coconut Grove on Halloween night.
These older guys, who both owned famous Grove bars back in the day and who both made their millions off "young kids" back in the day, were opposed to the younger crowd being here on Halloween night. It really bothered them. One said, "They don't spend money, and if they do, where do they go, the Sandbar?"
And this my friends, is all that is wrong with Coconut Grove. And as I look around and see the dozens and dozens of empty storefronts, this really made me sad. They want a visitors center all the way down by the water, but in reality don't really want any visitors. Or vistors of a certain age, it seems.
I took offense to this attitude and had to wonder what these two old gents, with a combined age of 150 or more between them, were doing out at midnight on a Monday night. They wondered how we could stop Halloween next year. I walked away in disgust.
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