Let's bring an auto show to Coconut Grove

We attended the Volksblast in South Miami recently, a classic Volkswagen festival and it was something that could easily take place in the Grove. It's a clean event, it consists of closing one street, and it brings out thousands of people.


The cars were set up on both sides of Sunset Dr., and I noticed that there were no food vendors, which is something the Grove likes to do so that the local businesses get the food and drink business. This is exactly how it worked in South Miami, all of the restaurants were packed with people, as well as all the stores, since people made a day of it and shopped, too.


A friend pointed out something quite interesting -- there were only about three police officers on the whole route from US1 to Red Road. Local security guards, like we have with BID security, filled in the slack, but there didn't seem to be a huge police expense as is the case with every event that happens in the City of Miami, where you need to pay double and triple time to have three or four police on every corner during an event.


People brought their pets and had them in and on the cars as well as up and down the street. And lots of families were out, it was a big day for that. This could work anywhere in the Grove from South Bayshore Drive (which was closed to traffic the same day due to the ING Marathon) or Commodore Plaza (we did this on a small scale one night during a block party), or even Grand Avenue. There was even talk of Matilda and Fuller Street one time as being a good venue on a weekend day. It's a clean, self-contained event. Let's do it!