The Grove is just a toilet to them
About those Miami Nice tourist buses and other tourist buses, we found out what goes on. They aren't so nice.
These buses use the Grove as a pit stop or should I say a piss stop. The driver gives them less than 30 minutes to get a drink at Starbucks, use the bathrooms at CocoWalk and then they leave. No time to eat, no time to shop, no time to enjoy the Grove.
Not so great for business in the Grove and really just wear and tear and filth for CocoWalk to clean up. I say ban the buses. Why do we need them? To clog up the streets, take away valued parking spots to allow a bunch of people to use our bathrooms and support a coffee house chain?
I say remove those "bus parking" areas right on Grand Avenue and have the buses go somewhere else. Those parking spots are highly desired by people that want to spend time and money in the Grove, not just stop for a quick pee.
Drop them off somewhere else to use a bathroom, like the airport or bus shelter.
These buses use the Grove as a pit stop or should I say a piss stop. The driver gives them less than 30 minutes to get a drink at Starbucks, use the bathrooms at CocoWalk and then they leave. No time to eat, no time to shop, no time to enjoy the Grove.
Not so great for business in the Grove and really just wear and tear and filth for CocoWalk to clean up. I say ban the buses. Why do we need them? To clog up the streets, take away valued parking spots to allow a bunch of people to use our bathrooms and support a coffee house chain?
I say remove those "bus parking" areas right on Grand Avenue and have the buses go somewhere else. Those parking spots are highly desired by people that want to spend time and money in the Grove, not just stop for a quick pee.
Drop them off somewhere else to use a bathroom, like the airport or bus shelter.
posted by Tom Falco at 7:57 AM
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13 Comments:
If the merchants don't complain, who are you to complain? From the POV of Starbucks or whatever, those are sales.
I say remove the bus parkings for sure, as they don't pay for those privileges and we pay for them via taxes... but, trust me, if the merchants didn't want their business, they would have reacted a long time ago.
The merchants are the ones who asked me to blog this. How else would I have known?
i think they are scared of the skaters thats why they don't stay more than 30 min, who would?
30 mins is all it takes to see and do whatever there is in coconut grove. any longer, and it would get really boring...
There is a ton of potential revenue on those buses and even though the ending result may be the same as kicking them out, a better angle seems to be to present an ultimatum. They have to stop for at least x hours or they are not allowed at all.
Tour buses full of people looking for a bathroom is the last thing that CocoWalk or its bathrooms need.
i think some of you are communists, i mean you guys remind me of Russia 1970's ULTIMATUMS how silly
I see what you're saying, I find it interesting that they drop off people to use a free bathroom and then huddle them back on the bus to go elsewhere to shop, stroll and eat.
I have heard the driver myself tell people to be back on the bus in 20 minutes. They treat the Grove like one of those bus stops you see in the movies, on the way from here to there, a quick bathroom stop and they're off.
I think its a good idea for the tourists to take a quick look at the Grove and then maybe return on their own. That's what happens when people take these tours. They want a peek and then if they like what they see, they'll probably want to take a leisurely stroll on their own.
Banning anything is a little crazy don't you think? And hey, people need to pee for pete's sake and the Grove is as good a place as any other. It does not degrade the place just cause someone wants to use a loo. Have you never peed in the Vatican? This is just Starbucks who sells overpriced (burnt)coffee. Shouldn't complain for someone using their bathrooms.
Parking is another story as someone very wisely pointed out.
For the anonymous with the ultimatums. Are you kidding? I mean, think about it as a grown up.
WHO presents the ultimatum? Mayor Manny Diaz? Are you crazy? He'd never do something like that. The Grapevine? He doesn't speak for Coconut Grove. The Cocowalk owners? He can forbid them from using Cocowalk toiles, but not Starbucks...
Then think to WHOM you present an ultimatum. There could be literally a dozen companies running those buses (even if there is one, it could be a dozen incorporations.
Then think about what you would do if the companies say NO. Do you fine them? On what grounds. Do you forbid them? How? This is a free country. Do you perhaps, shoot them?
Sometimes, I swear, some people think like children and this is what decimates the credibility of some
What you do is take away the free bus parking and see what happens. You make them pay for parking like we all have to.
And they aren't using Starbucks' bathroom, they are using the bathrooms at CocoWalk. I work at CocoWalk, I see it daily.
The parking should be behind on Florida Ave. so the tourist can walk through the Mayfair
plaza out to Grand Ave. and then towards
Bookstore then CocoWalk . It is unfair that they only get 20-30 min. REDICULOUS
Maybe the advertisement for the Grove should be happening not on U.S. 1 but on the Beach where they are picked up. Right now any brochure or car rental lists CocoWalk as the IT of Coconut Grove.
Maybe they can park on Rice Street and walk up through the Mayfair plaza area onto Grand Avenue.
Move the free parking to the spots on the side of the old News Cafe (across from the gym) and open up those spots on Grand Ave. for cars.
If you have ever visited a foreign city with any kind of tour group, or perhaps purchased a special hotel/airfare combo rate, like those of Liberty travel or Julia Tours, then you should be familiar with the Half Day "City Tour." This is usually a "free" tour thrown in as a bonus.
I think the merchants in the shops near the Trevi fountain in Rome probably felt the same way as you say our merchants do, when we stopped there for the 20 minutes, until they figured out that x amount of postcards or batteries or cappucinos per tourist per week add up. I am also sure the bathrooms in the Pantheon are checked out with the same diligence as that hole on the top. But people go home and say, hey, I saw the Pantheon,and chances are, they stopped for a cappucino or espresso at any of the nearby caffes.
Ditto the tour of Buenos Aires, where we had 20 minutes to check out the neighborhood that birthed the Tango, which basically consisted of a quick walk on the "Caminito," an empanada, and a piss.
The point of those tours is not that the driver or tour operator purposefully picks out a neighborhood as only being worthy of unloading the bus for to take a pee before awarding a better destination with a longer, more lucrative stay. Twenty minutes is "the longer stay". All the other places a basically a drive-by.
The Grove needs to see the Half Day City bus tour like a real live commercial. They are pretty much a free part of the tour, and savvy tourists take them in order to figure out what places they should go back and check out at their own leisure. Even if they do not have time, they will return home to Akron or Hamburg or Seville or Sao Paulo and exclaim to everyone about how they visited Coconut Grove and how fabulous it was.
I admit the newly improved CocoWalk may not be the Pantheon, but hey, sitting around that "piazza" and having "happy hour" at Bice is pretty swell-- just ask any of the tourists or locals.
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