Medina Village Board says car show can stay in Basin this year
File photo by Tom Rivers: Classic cars are lined up on Main Street during the Super Cruise on Sept. 2, 2015 when Main Street is blocked off. The car show is usually held in the Canal Basin on Fridays from June through mid August.
MEDINA – The car shows will continue in the Canal Basin this year. The event on Fridays is popular, drawing nearly 100 classic cars to the Basin weekly for about 10 car shows from early June to mid August.
However, those cars and the fans they draw fill up many parking spaces on Main Street and in the Basin. Some businesses have expressed concern to the Village Board about a parking crunch for the downtown, especially on busy Friday evenings.
“We want to work with all of those businesses,” said Mayor Mike Sidari.
The Village Board this evening approved allowing the municipal lot to be used for the car shows in 2017.
“We’ll take a look at this year,” Sidari said. “Hopefully everything goes smoothly.”
Sidari said the village will try to steer some more traffic to the lot south of East Center Street between The Medicine Shoppe and the back entrances of the Main Street businesses all the way to the Medina Theater.
Some of the employees for the Main Street businesses will also be encouraged to use that lot to ease some of the congestion on Main Street and the Basin, Sidari.
He praised the car show’s lead organizer, David Green, for creating an attraction in the village. Green has been among the car show leaders for about two decades.
The show brings in about 200-300 people to downtown on Fridays, Sidari. The Super Cruise on a Wednesday in August draws a much bigger crowd, with Main Street shut down to accommodate about 300 classic cars. (If the Super Cruise is rained out, it will be rescheduled for a Wednesday. Main Street won’t be blocked off on a Friday, Sidari said.)
“It’s a draw for the village,” he said about the cruise-ins. “The car owners come in from Genesee, Niagara and possibly Monroe County. They spend money at the restaurants and they draw people in.”
Village Trustee Tim Elliott, a Main Street business owner, abstained from the vote. He urged the village and businesses during a meeting last week to work on a long-term solution for parking.
The board also decided it would open the bathrooms and showers for boaters during the car shows as well. That way the village won’t have to rent a port-a-john, which will save some money, Sidari said.
