TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Some community members in Troy raised questions about the city's permitting process for public events. It comes after a local business canceled a charity fundraiser because of a big jump in costs.
Mayor Carmella Mantello said there have been noise complaints in the downtown area and she’s trying to strike a balance between the thriving nightlife and the families that live there.
“What we have said is it’s 9:00 P.M. It’s a good time to start wrapping it up. And the permit obviously is at the discretion of the city,” said Mantello.
However, co-owner of Nighthawks Josh Coletto said they took issue with the new fees associated with the annual event.
He said in past years he paid $45 for the permits and this year the fees would have amounted to roughly $1,500.
“Being a fundraiser, we didn’t want to lose a bunch of money on that, we couldn’t really afford it unfortunately,” said Coletto.
According to city code, the city has the discretion to assess what to charge for employees' time and a half, barricades, the stage and the police presence.
Mantello said when the application for this year’s permit made it to the Troy Police Department...
“The chief immediately said, ‘Listen, we are going to need some officers at the event just in case we’ll have them walk around,’ etc,” said Mantello.
According to the Special Use Permit, Nighthawks was expecting over 500 people this year. With that many people, Mantello said, the police need to have a presence.
“As a fundraiser for the community, I don’t know if they had those charges before and they just waived them because it was a fundraiser – because that was one thing I was told – but it was $45, always. And this year they said it was going to be $900 and they requested we had a police presence,” said Coletto.
He added community volunteers helped secure the event in the past.
“Whether the prior administration institute those costs with crowd control, etc. I can’t speak for them but what I can say here, our administration, we are going to work with businesses,” said Mantello.
She said they tried to work with the business to lower the costs and others have paid the new fees.
“Nobody really has created as many concerns as this event. Other applicants have paid for whatever it requires, police costs, barricades, DPW, you name it, they’ve paid for it,” said Mantello. “We can’t pull Nighthawks out and say ‘We will waive these fees. We’ll not have our police officers at the event’ because it is across-the-board.”
Mantello said they offered to amend the application. One suggestion was to remove the stage this year.
Coletto said that would’ve knocked off $150. He said many area business owners were concerned and reached out offering space, including the venue No Fun. But ultimately it wasn’t enough.
“There is a balance, and there is a level of respect and whatever happened in the past that’s the past. We are trying to create a thriving energetic city of Troy. One Troy,” said Mantello.
Although Nighthawks won’t be hosting its anniversary charity block party this year – which would have raised funds for homeless people at the Joseph’s House & Shelter – they will look into other potential ways to give back in the future.
