Editor:

This past Fourth of July was a complete disaster for sales for Forest Whispers (in The Fort). A weekend I was counting on turned out to be worse than a normal weekend. We will not list all the things that were not right, just the ones that bugged us the most.

People selling food that hurts our local restaurants just ticks me (Forest Whispers) off. It is tough enough to survive in that business without flatlanders selling food on what should be one of the biggest days of the year for local businesses.

Next, kid zone and carnival food should be held in the park and huge jump houses for the kids have no place right in front of our stores (Forest Whispers and Himalayan Treasures), let alone in the middle of a street. They should be in the park that we are so proud of, not next to a booth selling wine.

If you need four generators to run your booth, then you should not set up in the middle of town.

Lastly, if you are going to ask a merchant in town to lose the entire day of sales so you can have a circus in the street, you should ask permission from the merchants whose stores you are setting up in front of.

I (Forest Whispers) would have closed up and gone to another town if I had any idea that your idea of a fun Fourth of July was a circus in front of my store.

As it was, I lost 91 percent of normal Fourth of July sales. It was my worst sales day of any Fourth of July in the last 10 years.

Matt McDonald
Idyllwild