Mayor sends Mr. Peanut packing

The NUTmobile, sponsored by Planters Peanuts, made an abbreviated stop in Nelsonville on Saturday (May 13) before being asked to move along.

The 26-foot vehicle was scheduled to rendezvous with a New York City hiking group at the Nelsonville trailhead. But one of its three drivers, Grace Tessitore, said they were told they could not park there. Instead, they met the hikers on Main Street, where the parked NUTmobile turned far more heads.

One resident took a photo with his phone and it rapidly received more than 100 “likes” on the Philipstown Locals Facebook group. A mailman stopped by and was given bags of nuts to distribute to co-workers. And the spectacle may have contributed to a fender-bender near Village Hall by distracting a driver. After hearing the crash, Michael Bowman, the former mayor, offered his driveway to the NUTmobile, but soon Mayor Chris Winward arrived and said the vehicle needed a permit.

“If the truck had requested a permit we would have worked with the sheriff’s office to find a safe place for them to park, rather than so close to the intersection,” Winward said on Wednesday.

“The peanut truck was also part of an unauthorized trail-running event that set up at the Nelsonville Woods trailhead,” she said. “Another vendor, Salomon sporting goods, set up a pop-up tent on village property in front of the emergency access gate. They worked together with a nonprofit hiking group from the city.”

Winward said that Nelsonville requires that organizers of any event held on its property temporarily add the village to its insurance but, in this case, “they did not ask for permission. I believe this entrance to the trail was chosen because the Breakneck trailhead is closed. To my knowledge, we’ve never had a corporate-sponsored event happen there before.”

Tessitore said she and her two companion “Peanuters” have been traveling in the NUTmobile for nearly a year through 48 states but had never been asked to leave. “Although we had to shorten our visit, we enjoyed the brief time we had meeting some people in Nelsonville!” she wrote in an email.

Ross Corsair contributed reporting.

Behind The Story

Type: News

News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

A former longtime national magazine editor, Rowe has worked at newspapers in Michigan, Idaho and South Dakota and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from Northwestern University. Location: Philipstown. Languages: English. Area of Expertise: General.

8 replies on “No Nuts in Nelsonville”

  1. I believe the article misstates the reasons for the so-called NUTmobile’s appearance in Nelsonville last weekend. Planters Peanuts was one of the sponsors of the trail running event, and the rendezvous was of very much commercial nature. Somehow the event’s organizers decided that it was beneath them to alert the village of their plans to host dozens of trail runners and set up shop in the tiny parking lot by the Pearl Street entrance to the Nelsonville Woods. That area can hardly accommodate five to seven cars, so the 26-foot vehicle could not fit and had to circle the streets, ultimately causing an accident. Had the village been let aware of the planned event, we would have worked with the organizers and sponsors to find the most suitable location for the truck. I support Mayor Winward’s actions and her request for the event to cease, and can hardly fathom that a similar reaction by the Cold Spring or Philipstown officials in response to an unauthorized event on village’s property would garner such a write-up from the Highlands Current.

  2. Thy hypocrisy of the residents of Philipstown/Cold Spring/Nelsonville is truly mind-blowing. These are the same people that have all the “Everyone is welcome here” signs in their front yards. Whatever happened to “Love is love?”

    1. I don’t think the sign “We Believe Black Lives Matter / No Human is Illegal / Love is Love / Women’s Rights are Human Rights / Science is Real / Water is Life” is meant to welcome peanut trucks, although I wish I had seen it!

        1. It was a commercial event that has nothing to do with the state of the world…or the sign.

  3. I have a peanut allergy in my family, yet I’d welcome the NUTmobile to Philipstown. Do we need to politicize everything? [via Facebook]

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