When the announcement hit the newspapers that Oyster Festival XX was going to move to the waterfront, there was a tidal wave of concern among merchants in town. The festival is an important part of their financial plans and being without the influx of 200,000 potential customers is making them concerned.

One of the local merchants said, "We rely on business that weekend but also on the repeat business it brings. If they see the shop they will come back another time. It's really a tough time to run a business, and we get repeat business from the festival. People came back for the two, three, four months after the festival. They say, 'We were here during the Oyster Festival.' Moving the festival is definitely going to hurt all of us."

Oyster Festival co-chair Beverly Zembko put it all together saying, "We need to talk to each other." She said when the decisions were being made to change the location of the festival - all they heard were the negatives.

She said, "No one has come to us and said we really think the OysterFest is a great festival and we like having it in town. We've only heard the negatives. We thought having it at the waterfront would be a benefit. This year we're highlighting a different part of Oyster Bay. We didn't intentionally mean to cause a new problem," she said.

"We did know, that when the chamber dropped the festival, we were urged by many merchants and nonprofits to keep it going," she said.

When Rotary took over their first festival, they requested the merchants help with some of the expenses of running the festival, street clean up, garbage and advertising. "We estimated their fair share based on the amount of money the nonprofits pay. They were surprised to see that they pay from $700 up to $2,000 depending on how many booths, locations, tents and much how electricity they need. There is a scale and we applied it to the restaurants that participated and asked them to help. The festival was getting more expensive to run including the costs of street cleaning and garbage collection as well as advertising. We requested between $500 and $1,000 and for the smaller businesses, $250 and we had a very small response, "she said.

While there was a small response from merchants, there were a lot of complaints. They included the comment that Rotary had split the Oyster Festival in two. "It was really so spread apart with locations at the waterfront and in the hamlet. They wanted food at the waterfront and that fractured our food court. After much discussion we decided to move the festival to the waterfront."

She said the map of the festival that is on their Internet site: oysterfest.com shows how the festival will be set up. "The map looks really good. Mel Warren, (another co-chair, and in charge of the arts and crafts site) and I walked through the site and based on our measurements we will fit and the crowds will as well. It will be even easier for them to be on line for the food. There will be three tents for the arts and crafts located at the boat launch area in the parking lot. The food court is in the parking lot that goes from the little gazebo and backs up to the tennis courts and softball field. The sponsors will be there and there will be picnic tables set up in the area.

"If you look at that map, the carnival will be set up in Firemen's Field and from there people can still walk into town and see the stores and visit the restaurants," she said.

Ms. Zembko had another suggestion for the merchants. "We have asked if the restaurants want to partner with the non-profits. Fiddleheads restaurant and Locomotive 35 partnered last year and are doing it again. Eileen O'Leary acts as their food vendor. They have a great arrangement and will sell crab rolls and shrimp cocktail and seafood gumbo. I have five non-profits looking for a vendor, which could be a local restaurant. Unfortunately a lot of the food items are spoken for (we try not to compete with each other) but there is always something people can do when they start thinking about it."

The funds earned by the Oyster Festival have done a great deal to improve the area. "The Baymen have re-seeded the bay with clams; many organizations give to the local food pantries, some go toward scholarships for local seniors. At the Oyster Bay Cooperative Pre-school we give out scholarships because we believe every child should have an opportunity to attend pre-school," Ms. Zembko said, who runs one of the local businesses in town.

She added, "Doubleday Babcock Senior Center relies on the festival as one of their fundraisers. The Oyster Bay East Norwich Soccer Club has two booths and works to keep the costs down for the kids and to help their travel teams. The Italian-American Ladies Club put their money back into the club to be able to continue it for future generations. The Boy Scouts subsidize their camping experience for the kids so that it isn't too costly."

Coming back to the problem the committee is facing, Ms. Zembko said, "We worked very hard on the festival. What I'd like to have is a committee formed of all the stakeholders in the community that take part in the festival: a representative from each one who can think about the issues and help make decisions. I think it's been very difficult for Rotary to shoulder the whole thing. The organization is lucky that it has such hard working members. Since it started three years ago, no one came to Rotary and said we are really doing well. We heard mostly negative comments about getting the festival out of the heart of the hamlet. I'm very saddened that there seems to be such division now."

She said, "I can understand the concern of the restaurants and bars, they made a lot of money from selling beer and alcohol products as well as the food. We are still determined that the festival be alcohol free and there will be no alcohol sold at the waterfront except for a non-alcohol beer and a homemade root beer that will be served by Locomotive 35 members at their booth. Maybe the biggest challenge is the connection between the hamlet of Oyster Bay and the waterfront. There is that challenge of how to tie the two together. The hamlet will still have its usual attractions. We expect that the Masons will be having their beer garden open in back of the Matinecock Lodge on West Main Street. I think many people who are used to attending the festival will do so and continue to return to places they have visited in the past. The chamber of commerce is working on some ideas for merchants," she added.

One of the regular volunteers at the Oyster Festival sees the change of venue as a poor idea. "People love to go to a street festival where the streets are closed off and be able to walk along in the middle of the streets and show off their costumes. You see lots and lots of leather and body jewelry.

"I hope it is as big a turnout as it has been over the years, but not bigger. It's big enough. I'm an Oyster Bay resident and I too have problems with the crowds those days, but it's for the good of the community. The non-profits money goes back into the community. A street festival is a lot more fun than a festival in a parking lot," he said.

Cozy Realty CEO Steve Minicozzi (the former owner of The Homestead restaurant) thinks moving the Oyster Festival to the waterfront location is a good idea. "I think it will be better for everyone in town. Being an ex-bar owner - the Homestead restaurant - it was great for walk in traffic but it was not great for other businesses in town. They did less business in town. The waterfront will be a nicer backdrop for the whole event. It will be easier for the Rotary to control. It will be easier to do the cleanup. Homeowners will not have any problems," he said.

Tom Vieweg of South Street Café said he wasn't thrilled at seeing the festival more to the waterfront. "I see their reason, I just think the effect on some of the merchants in town is not going to be very positive. We will have our clam bar set up in back, but we can't set up on the street where we normally set up a barbecue. With the streets not closed, we can't do that.

"In the past even the non-profits and the merchants were competing for customers, there was business enough for everybody. They won't let the merchants set up at the waterfront to compete with the non-profits. The Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce didn't know about the decision to move the festival. We really feel it should be in town. We don't want the businesses to lose business. We don't want to be the bad guys but our responsibility in the chamber is to help the merchants. The Oyster Festival pays a lot of our rents for the year. Without that a lot of businesses won't survive," he said.

Another restaurateur said the Oyster Festival helped them get over the January and February slump in business. He also said finding out about the change of venue so late in the year would play havoc with the financial planning of the merchants.

The Oyster Festival takes place the weekend after Columbus Day, Saturday, Oct. 18 and Sunday Oct. 19. The fun begins on Friday with a carnival in Firemen's Field and a fireworks show.