Beneficial for residents and businesses
By Michael Turton
Organizers and participants alike reported that the Town-wide Tag Sale on Oct. 5 (Saturday), was a resounding success. “We had 84 registered tag sales and lots who piggy-backed off the event with unregistered events and several multi-family events,” said Debbi Milner, President of the Cold Spring Area Chamber of Commerce, which put the new event together. Part of the rationale for the tag sale was to attract people to town as a boost to local businesses. It seems it worked. “The chamber received close to 100 calls about the tag sale from people from out of town, looking for the map and asking for information before the event,” Milner said.
The chamber is already looking ahead to next year. “We are considering holding this event again, possibly in the spring,” Milner said. As with any new event, it was a learning experience for organizers. “We would distribute the map earlier than the night before, but not much earlier since we don’t want to encourage early birds,” Milner said. The chamber is also thinking about using a large space, such as Mayor’s Park, to enable residents in the outlying areas to sell their goods in the village if they consider that to be a better location.
Milner said that other than a lower than expected turn-out in outlying areas and some debate over the best time to release the map, feedback has been very positive. She said there was also a good response of the event partnering with Putnam/Northern Westchester Women’s Resource Center in support of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
A number of accolades came in from residents and business owners. “There was a nice turnout with tons of serious shoppers – and they seemed to be patronizing our stores as well as the individual [tag] sales,” said Patty Villanova, owner of Side Effects New York, a Main Street shop in Cold Spring.
The day proved rewarding for Ray Fusco as well. “I sold close to one thousand dollars worth of stuff and met neighbors I didn’t even know existed!” he said. Karen Riner was also very happy with how the day went. “We had a good day out on Knollwood Lane – plenty of visitors. I think we sold well more than 50 percent of our items and were happy to box up the rest for the veterans who picked up on Monday,” she said.
The Purple Heart Veterans picked up unsold items on the Monday after the sale. “That went extremely well, considering we had tornado warnings for the afternoon and pounding rain much of the day,” Milner said. Drivers picked up items from “all but a handful” of the 47 donation sites and returned on Thursday to cover any sites that had been missed.
Photos by M. Turton
