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Ornberg on downtown food vendors controversy

It's not about hot dog carts, it's about revitalization in a depressed downtown

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: September 28, 2009

The main problem faced by main street merchants in Marion is not too many businesses competing for too few customers, it's too few customers with any reason to come to town. That's the opinion of one businessman who found himself at the center of continuing controversy surrounding the new hot dog cart ordinance.

Mike Ornberg, owner and proprietor of the Crooked Door Coffee House, said there's been a tragic failure to communicate when it comes to his position on the mobile food carts ordinance in downtown Marion.

He sat down Monday morning with The McDowell News to clarify his position on the issue that has dominated city politics increasingly in the past month.

In August, the Marion City Council acted on a recommendation of the Planning Board to allow operators of mobile food carts in the downtown area. An ordinance was drafted governing the particulars of operation and stipulating that vendors should pay a $100 "privilege fee" for the license to operate their businesses for one year.

This did not sit well with some. Ornberg and another Main Street business owner objected to the council that the license fee for mobile vendors was entirely too low, given the expense brick-and-mortar businesses face of owning or renting storefront space.

The council agreed with the objections, raising the fee for mobile food vendors from $100 per year to $1,200 per year.

Objections have been raised however, due to the wide disparity between license fees for various types of businesses. The privilege license fees paid by the restaurants and cafes on Main Street were considerably lower than the new cart fee – ranging from $25 to $137.50.

Rules in neighboring communities vary. Morganton does not allow food vendor carts in the downtown. Forest City allows them to operate without a license or fee. Rutherfordton allows them to operate downtown with a $25 annual peddler's license.

Only one entrepreneur, hot dog vendor Lisa Miller, has applied for or received a license to work in downtown Marion. She relocated her stand near the gazebo on Main Street Monday morning.

Earlier in September, Ornberg told the City Council that the presence of mobile food carts operating with a $100 per year fee represented "unfair competition." He said the foot traffic on Main Street was so slim that every business there was operating on a shoestring margin.

The McDowell News asked Ornberg how a hot dog cart could effectively compete against his business. That, he said, was never the point. He operates two businesses, a coffee shop (which serves no food) and an art gallery and farming shop (which also sells trophies and awards).

Obviously, he said, hot dogs will not compete against his offerings. He said he wishes Miller all the best in her venture. His concern is that the council took what he sees as a hasty and ill-informed decision without input from the business community.

He and other local merchants, he stated, have been struggling for several years to get the city to adopt a set of long term goals, a master plan, to revitalize the downtown economy through beautification, business recruiting and activities and events.

Studies have been commissioned, experts have been brought in for consultation, committees have labored to hash out plans, Ornberg said, for several years, all to be completely ignored by the city government.

One of the first things that sets revitalized mill-town downtown districts apart, he said, is landscaping. Rutherfordton, for example, has large trees on every block downtown, inviting visitors to park and walk. That, he said, brings business.

"The source of my frustration," he said, "is the failure of the city to implement good plan after good plan that has been handed to them." He said a long-range master plan, by definition, takes years or decades to carry out, and Marion has yet to adopt theirs while neighboring towns have completed or are nearing completion of theirs, and have the near full occupancy of downtown commercial space to show for it.

He said that shoppers habituate over the course of years, and it takes years to get them to change their habits. When he was a child, it was not uncommon to see several hundred people downtown at one time.

But their habits have changed. Shoppers routinely go out of town to shop. And downtown Marion gives them few if any reasons to shop locally. It will take an extended program of beautification and events planning to change those attitudes, and get people back in the habit of coming downtown.

"I come to town from the north side every day," he elaborated. "The first things you see are the City Hall and the Community Building, both beautifully landscaped. Then you get to the business district.

"No shade, no trees, just green cones," said Ornberg. "This is so important. It needs to be done now."

A Super Wal-Mart is coming soon, he said, the most modern Wal-Mart in the region. It will bring in shoppers. And the course of action the town takes will determine its effect on the local economy.

A revitalized downtown will attract them to come to Main Street as well, he said. Or downtown can fall further behind, and see even fewer folks bothering to come downtown.