Like many Long Island main streets, the economy impacts Main Streets in Montauk, East Hampton Village, and Amagansett. It's times like these that people get to thinking about the home they love so much, coming up with their own ideas to improve them, be them wild stretches of the imagination or practical fixes that are altogether doable.
So let's hear them.
In the spirit of putting the local dreamer and the civic leaders on the same plane, we'd like to give all locals the opportunity to share their big ideas. In this forum, no idea should be shot down. Instead, let's gather as many suggestions as we can so we can later narrow the list down to the 10 most popular ideas for each community.
We can't wait to hear what you come up with so post in the comment section below.
Here's an idea: local stores should ask customers to bring in a snapshot of the checkout page of amazon or other e-commerce site and that store will meet the price listed. Show proof that the customer abandoned the check out before purchasing and they get an additional incentive (e.g., small free item, additional 1-2%, whatever). You need to change established consumer behaviors not just advertise the soft benefits of buying local.
It helps when there is a good balance of store types along the full length of the desired area - this extends pedestrian traffic. Its good to have clusters of varied shops (food, clothing, other) rather than create sections (e.g., the high end fashion vs. the food and movies). Ideas: 1. Shopping carts should be kept in bounds in the store parking lot 2. Extend the lit pedestrian crossings from Main to Newtown 3. Better train the "white glove" crosswalk kids 4. Go back to the traditional looking holiday lights rather than the tacky LED lights 5. Have something for each season (daffodils-spring, flower boxes-summer, pumpkins-fall, holiday lights-winter. ** The worst thing we could to our Main St experience would be to create courtyard malls as they did in Amagansett and Watermill - it diverted all the building investment away from the traditional street facing stores. ** The Village has done some great things by planting trees, putting benches in place and having merchants keep their store windows looking cheery (i.e., "we'll be back in the spring").
The Village has enough to deal with to create conditions for a good Main St experience, but market forces should drive what happens in stores, how long they stay open etc (it's already very hard to get a business going on our Main Streets...it took Mary's Marvelous months longer than expected to open a simple, year-round and highly-in-demand shop).