It has been years since I've updated you with some small town gossip. I'm back with two items of interest.
1) There is a local bar with an outdoor patio and some of the people who live nearby this bar are upset about the loud music from live bands that play regularly on Thursday through Sunday nights in warm months (May(ish) through October(ish) in Wisconsin). One of the upset people has been a long time resident of the community (over six decades). The people who support the bar are saying that she shouldn't have bought her house when she knew the bar was there, but she bought her house long before that bar was there and there certainly wasn't a patio with outdoor music at the time she moved in.
I don't have my finger on the pulse of which side most people support, but as someone who was talking to realtors about selling my house before the church stopped playing bells at night (even though I LOVE my house and I LOVE my neighborhood), I get the frustration at not being able to sleep because of neighborhood noises. This is causing quite a stir on the local community Facebook page and I don't dare wade in because I am quite unpopular on that page - the great Church Bell Controversy of 2020-2023 made people distrust me intensely - but I hope that lady and her neighbors get some relief.
I think it goes without saying that I've never been to this bar, right?
I'd say I'll keep you updated, but it'll probably be another three years before I do another Small Town Gossip. There's only so much gossip in this tiny place.
2) In early 2023, there was a vote at a local city council meeting to award an open liquor license to a business in town. There are limited liquor licenses in each jurisdiction (controlled by the Tavern League and I have major beefs with this organization, but that's another blog post) and it was a contested issue with three applicants for the one license. I wrote about this briefly before, but the two main contenders were a local brew pub and this new bar that was going to be opening soon whose owners already own two bars in town and also run a popular non-profit. Additionally, one of the new bar's best friends is a city council member.
The original committee that was organized to decide this issue recommended the license go to the brew pub, but when it went before the council for a formal vote, they voted for the new bar instead.
Oh, boy. Some people were enraged. Some people were happy because the new bar owners are popular citizens.
But the enraged 58people kept being enraged because the new bar did not open and did not open and did not open for more than eighteen months after they were awarded the license. Oh, boy.
And I haven't been to this new bar, either. I don't think I'm mad about the brew pub not getting the license (I've been to the brew pub three times - once the food was fine, once it took more than forty-five minutes for me to get food, and another time I found multiples hairs in the fries), but I'm more upset about the way it made the council look corrupt. Someone did the research and it's been decades or something like that since the council didn't take a committee suggestion. The appearance of partiality was striking.
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What's the gossip in your neck of the woods?
New library, gorgeous and built with federal/state/private funds, wants to hire some security as some homeless people are camping out there all day and causing ruckuses. City doesn't want to spend the money, I think, because it means the homeless aren't cluttering up business district in the daytime. (Honeless people fully welcome at library, but the repeated disruptions are not.) Not sure how this will play out.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's so hard! Our library is close to the Middle School and is overrun by tweens/young teens after school and they do so much to keep it from being disruptive to other patrons. *sigh* Libraries are in such a tough spot in modern society.
DeleteWe have a neighbour who is a musician and once (and once only) since we moved in he had a party with an amp and people singing and drinking until 3 am. I honestly thought I was going to lose my mind. It was so loud and awful. So I know I would actually lose my mind if it happened regularly during a particular season.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who knows all too well what the stress of an environmental circumstance can do to one's sense of self/home, I also know it isn't always as "easy" as just up and moving! Sigh. I feel this woman's pain.
Also...WAIT...I feel like I knew the bells had stopped but also...forgot the bells had stopped. So it's like hearing good news for the second time but it feels like the first time. What a wonderful reminder! Hooray.
I was working out of town once and my hotel room was on the same side of the building as an outdoor band and I could not sleep and it made that trip such a drag. Keep your noise indoors, I say!
Deleteoooh I love community gosspi. Multiple hair in the fires!! OMG no thank you. I also think the replies to the woman concerned about noise are basically the worst of our American impulses.
ReplyDelete*hairs *fries. Ugh
DeleteI do not go to that place anymore despite frequent invitations. If they let hairnets slide, what other safety regulations are they lax on?!
DeleteOooh community gossip is always wild. I'm not up on any gossip here but there was always some kind of feud going on in my old neighbourhood in Calgary. Especially during the pandemic, ay-ay-ay there was always something going on. I remember when I left there was a post about someone whose dog pooped on someone's lawn, but the person cleaned it up, but the person whose lawn it was, they were enraged that anyone would have a dog that would poop on grass...etc. I mean. It was one of those facebook pages that would take the smallest thing and then before you knew it everyone was angrily weighing in.
ReplyDeleteHa ha. The biggest issues on our FB page are dog poop and the state of the road in town. I always feel like if that's the focus of concern, we're doing okay.
DeleteThe dog poop controversy is real! The city technically owns the strip of land between the road and the sidewalk and people are forever putting "No Poop" signs up there and I take great pride whenever Hannah poops near them. I mean, I clean it up, obviously, but where do they think dogs are going to poop?
That's pretty juicy! I don't think my town is small enough to have "small town gossip." But wait! WHY are you unpopular over the church bell issue? Did people actually like them ringing all night???
ReplyDeletePeople who live in town but not in our neighborhood LOVE the bells. LOVE them. I was persona non grata for a while and was told to move, including by a member of the city council. "The church was there before you moved in" I was told repeatedly. And that is true, but I just didn't realize that they went off ALL NIGHT LONG. Anyway, I'm over it. The church is otherwise a lovely neighbor - they clean the sidewalks, the drivers are always courteous, and the building is gorgeous. Since the bells stop from 10pm - 7am now, I have ZERO COMPLAINTS and we told the realtor we're not looking to move.
DeleteDid they ring every hour? All night? I mean, even if they didn't, bells in the middle of the night would be terrible. How could people actually LIKE that?
DeleteAllison, they rang EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES AROUND THE CLOCK. But now they don't and I am super happy about this change.
DeleteThe funniest story I have about my town's FB page is that back when the Northern Lights were out, someone posted a picture and complained that the lights were so dim compared to what that person was seeing people post from other places. My husband and I laughed about it, and then realized that duh! the person was in the park down the street from us and WE COULD GO SEE THE NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!! So the complaint led to a fun family outing for us, and we didn't mind one bit about our dim Northern Lights. What can I say, I guess I'm a fan of people posting things that they really shouldn't on public FB pages.
ReplyDeleteBut anywayz...I don't know what "side" to be on with the woman vs the patio. I have sympathy for the woman, but the patio sounds fun. The liquor license sounds shady AF but again, whose side do we chose? I guess the only thing I know for sure is that if I came to your town we would not eat at the brew pub.
I have 100% sympathy for the lady who can't sleep four nights a week for half the year. That's not a sustainable lifestyle!
DeleteI can't think of a big controversy. We have many new subdivisions, but I think growth has been handled quite well. We had an unpopular mayor for awhile, but we are in our second term past him now.
ReplyDeleteOh, it's great that growth has been handled well. In my neck of the woods, people complain about sprawl A LOT. LOL.
DeleteI'm unaware of any gossip in my town at the moment. I'm not even aware of a FB page, but I occasionally see posts on Nextdoor for the surrounding areas. One post was pretty awful, because the person posted about someone suspicious - don't remember the details, but the description of the 'suspect', who I don't think was actually doing anything wrong, was based solely on that person's skin color and I was BLOWN AWAY. It was horribly racist. Unreal.
ReplyDeleteI do feel for the person who lives near the loud-at-night patio. But I like the sound of the outdoor area too. Then the liquor license scandal. Oh brother. From the look of the pics you posted, your little town is really lovely.
Our town is lovely, thank you. I can't really take credit for it, but I do love it here.
DeleteI remember the bar story, but I did not know that the bells stopped! Your gossip is so clean! My small town was where I was when I was younger. Of course it is still there and I still have friends there, but I no longer live in the thick of it. However, in HS/college it was mostly who was sleeping with who's boyfriend. There are many sets of people where there are some weird families of kids where one couple had a kid then split, then the guy got with a new girl and had a kid, then split up, then the girl got with a new guy and had a kid. Basically a lot of half siblings and various last names, and probably if you get together with someone there, they will have either had a relationship with or had a kid with one of your friends. Haha!
ReplyDeleteOh, I have some gossip about whose truck was seen in front of whose house and the lady on the city council who stole money from a nonprofit (okay, it wasn't outright THEFT - she just signed a contract to do work and then did incredibly shoddy work that she charged them $150/hour for and all the work had to be redone), but it's not SUPER specific to this town, whereas I feel like these two items are soooo small town. They probably wouldn't happen in a big city and if they did, people would not be holding grudges for so long.
DeleteI don't know any local gossip--I'm usually the last one to know about anything anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo thanks for this installment. It's like something out of a mystery novel--the next thing is someone's going to find a body... dun, dun, dun, dun.... (Obviously I hope that does NOT happen! And that you and Hannah are NOT the ones to find them!)
There is a guy here who killed his brother and sister-in-law right outside town in 2020. He fled into the woods and hasn't been seen. Local speculation is that he killed himself in the woods and just hasn't been found. If we ever find a dead body, both Hannah and I would be too scared to do anything about it!
DeleteI don't follow our town's FB page (or any FB page really) so I'm not up on the latest gossip. But last year, the word on our street was that a neighbor who lives behind us tucked into the woods was running an unlicensed kennel as we were hearing multiple dogs howling all day/night long.
ReplyDeleteAnd, The Husband just informed me that the current rumor is that Dee Schneider from Twisted Sister bought the enormous (obscenely enormous) house that was being built a few years ago and then mysteriously abandoned. Whether this is true or not who knows. But that house is once again being worked on towards being finished.
Oh, wow! If you start seeing Dee Schneider around town, that will be super fun!
DeleteI do not know the local gossip. I'm sure there is plenty of juicy gossip to know, but I just don't know. I do feel for the lady living next to the bar. The music should probably be just inside after 10:00 pm, but the patio does sound like fun so mayb e I would be part of the problem. In our city, but not near me, people are trying to compaign for a curfew on the airport like Sydney has but I don't have any sympathy for them because all the areas around the airport were developed well after the aiport was established so they knew what they were getting.
ReplyDeleteThere were complaints about the noise from the Minneapolis airport and I think they did do some noise proofing on homes to help. It's tough when you want an airport close to urban areas, but the noise pollution is real!
DeleteNow what a fun formate – community gossip. I love it.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing what small towns and communities concerns are. But I get it too. The noise thing more than the liscensing things.
They're both such big deals here. LOL. I love living in a small town.
DeleteHow late does the live music go? We have a noise bylaw that kicks in at 11 p.m., and as long as I know I can sleep after that I'm fine, but I know that's late for some people. I love live music, but four nights a week is a lot, especially if she lived there before the pub was there.
ReplyDeleteI left a neighbourhood FB group because the hysteria and in-fighting was so annoying. I'm on one area bulletin board group because it's usually useful but my god some people are petty and unkind. There is talk of planned shelters nearby for asylum seekers, and there was a protest framed as 'not enough services for them', but honestly it's mostly just NIMBY-ism.
I don't know how late the music goes because I've never been there. I suspect they probably stop by 11 or so, but I could definitely be wrong. I happen to know (because of the bell situation) that our noise ordinance is ridiculous lax. There are no time limits. It's all at the discretion of the police to see what is deemed violating it. Oh, well. I wish that lady luck.
DeleteI'm blissfully unaware of all neighborhood gossip since I'm not on facebook or places like nextdoor. I can't handle any more drama so prefer to just not know what people are mad about. Phil is on FB so will tell me things that are worth telling me. In our house, we do have a major beef w/ the family across the street who have loud, disrespectful teenagers. I sleep w/ earplugs so I sleep throught their shenanigan but Phil doesn't. We also know the house next to these people had a major beef w/ this household as well, but they moved last summer and we are just waiting for a new conflict to brew between the new neighbors and the loud house.
ReplyDeleteWe do not have loud neighbors for the most part. The guy two doors down does occasionally blast bass-heavy music and they let off firecrackers from the end of June through October, which drives me batty, but I feel lucky that it's the worst of our neighborhood.
DeleteThe town I live in is probably to big for small town gossip. They still manage to gossip on nextdoor and facebook but I stopped looking at it. Gossip is one of the reasons I did not like growing up in a small town (and I mean small, small) and it did not change.
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah, I grew up in a small, small town (about 400 people) and that was the WORST gossip. Like, I don't know any of the players in the bar situation - either the owners of the bar or the house - so I don't really have any sort of personal involvement in it. I don't really want to know gossipy gossip, you know?
DeleteOh boy, those are two controversial issues and I am not surprised people have OPINIONS.
ReplyDeleteI don't actively engage in community gossip but people always find something to complain about, amirite?
Yes, on our community page they mostly complain about dog poop and how bad the roads are. I feel like if that's what people are complaining about, we're doing all right.
DeleteOur neighborhood gossip mostly has to do with the big apartment building that went in on our little dead end road and what a pain in the ass it is, with people blocking traffic all of the time by double parking. Gah.
ReplyDeleteI feel for the woman next to the bar, and why are people such idiots to say she shouldn't have moved there WHEN SHE WAS THERE FIRST. Pretty soon people will be saying we shouldn't have moved in behind a huge apartment building, when I've been here since 1998, and it opened last year.
Oh, wow! I'm so sorry it hasn't been a smooth transition. Zoning laws are so crazy sometimes. It's like urban planners don't *actually* plan for increased traffic!
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ReplyDeleteThankfully, ever since I left Facebook, I’m blissfully unaware of any town gossip! Though, I have to admit, I do enjoy hearing gossip from other towns now and then.🤣
Yeah, it's great to hear gossip if you're not involved in any of it!
DeleteAs someone who loves her peace and quiet, I feel for the people where the patio just started having live music. What a pickle!
ReplyDeleteUmmmmm, not sure if there is any gossip in our new spot. I've not heard any and I certainly hope to NOT be the center of any. 😝
I would have to move if I were that lady. I totally know why she doesn't want to move - what a faff - but I would have to! It's basic a quarter of the days of the year!
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