OCEAN CITY, Md. -- Business owners on the boardwalk in Ocean City are concerned with regulations of the Oceans Calling festival. While many seem happy about the increased foot traffic, a point-of-sale system and potential boardwalk closures have raised eyebrows.
Syed Mehdi owns a few businesses on the boardwalk and is worried the closures could limit people who are not in town for the festival from getting to his business.
"I don't think they should have closures that could affect our regular client to come in," said Mehdi.
But, City Manager Terry McGean said that won't be the case.
"Under no circumstances will we force anybody to close, I want to make that 100% clear," said McGean.
McGean said if a business wants to participate, their section of the boardwalk will be closed off, but only if all adjoining businesses agree to participate.
"It is pretty much going to be all or nothing, we can’t have one business be part of it and one business choose to not be part of it," said McGean. "Because we can’t close off one piece of the boardwalk and open up the piece right next to it."
If businesses choose to not be in the festival, McGean said the town will work any closures around their property.
"If the businesses choose not to be in it, then what will happen is a portion of the boardwalk, in other words an eastern section of the boardwalk will close down, be part of the event so that people inside the event can move in and out," said McGean.
The part of the boardwalk where businesses are would remain open.
Another point of contention among business owners was a point-of-sale system, which could monitor transactions from festival goers and possibly have a percentage of sales paid out to the festival promoter.
Mike Strawley, owner of The Bearded Clam, said while he's happy the festival is coming to town, he doesn't think it's fair to give away a portion of sales.
"Right now they don’t deserve it, they haven’t earned the right to get money from us when they haven’t produced a product yet," said Strawley.
Exactly how much a business would have to pay has not been decided on yet, and McGean said only businesses who want to participate will use the POS.
"The idea was that there might be some percentage of the sales that would go to the promoter to cover the costs of providing security, but again very conceptual," said McGean.
McGean said the idea was a POS system would allow festival goers to use wristbands connected to credit cards to make purchases with businesses who are a part of the festival.
Town officials did meet with business owners on Wednesday, March 15th to discuss their concerns and work with them to smooth out any remaining worries before the festivals launch date in September.
The next step will be another meeting involving business owners and the festivals promoter, but a date for that meeting has not been set yet.
