The Merchants met this morning to plan the new year

"Stop, dine, unwind." A new billboard slogan? It could be, that was the theme of this morning's Merchant's Meeting, held at the NET office.

Daisy Lewis, Steve Licata and Felice Dubin (shown above) conducted the first real meeting in a long time. About 20 to 25 merchants showed up. Not bad, but 250 notices went out, so only 10% showed up. Others like Dave Collins from the BID and Haydee Wheeler, from the NET office were also present, as well as Ron Nelson, Comm. Sarnoff's Chief of Staff and other local leaders. Maybe 40 to 50 people were there in total.

The goal now for the merchants is to increase traffic and commerce in the Grove through art, shops, dining and their theme of "tree-lined tropical streets" and pushing the fact that we are the only Village in the area that is also a sailing community. That uniqueness should be a main theme.

There is a new concept of Block Captains. Those at the meeting were appointed the Block Captain of their block or side of the street and their job is to inform and disseminate information, for instance, Jeffrey Catanach from the UPS store is in charge of that small block from the dry cleaners to Focaccia, Subway, The Last Carrot, etc.

H. from H&H Jewels is in charge of that area around Main Highway. John El-Masry of Mr. Moe's was named Block Captain for his side of Commodore Plaza and Sylvano Bignon of Greenstreet was named Block Captain for his side, and so on.

I think the Grapevine is the only real block captain they need. Just have all employees and residents read us daily and they don't have to go walking door to door to give the daily news. I mean, after all, the town crier died out years ago.

Sylvano felt there should be one vision and that right now there are too many committees and groups.

Felice's main focus was to bring events to the Grove. Business goes up dramatically when there are events which draw people. More art and music on the streets is planned as well as new events planned throughout the year.

A village-wide Happy Hour should start soon under the direction of Daisy. It will be called "Recession Decompression."

The Bed Race is back -- Memorial Day Weekend. The Banyan Festival was set for March, but more time is needed, so it may be later in the year or early next year.