The 2010 Spring Street fair started early Saturday morning as the police blocked off much of Main Street for many dozens of participants and vendors to set up their booths.  Despite earlier forecasts which hinted that there was a chance of precipitation, the day dawned bright, sunny, and mild.  It was, in fact, perfect weather for this sort of event. In the past, this has not always been so. Los Banos street fairs have (on occasion) been met with curve balls from mother nature. Once in a while vendors have been met with too much heat, rain, and even wind that blew over vendor tables causing damage to merchandise and frazzling participants. This year things seemed to go much more smoothly.

A multitude of diverse vendors and exhibitors ranging from politicians like Susan Coston who is running for county superintendent, to Tammie Miller with Re/Max realtors, Patricia McCoy representing Candle Comforts, the Nieman family who own Security by Design, as well as Sandy Lemas and Jeanne Knapp along with the Earth Day folks, got their booths into place in short order. 

Mixed in with the plethora of exhibitors were some new and eye catching things.  For instance, new to the street fair this year were the popular pony rides where for five dollars smiling children were able to ride around in circles for a few minutes as parents snapped pictures and cooed over how cute they were.  2010 is a "United States Census Year" and a large booth was set up where people could come by and get information about the US Census and pick up free trinkets such as ball caps, brushes, t-shirts, pennants, key chains, fans and all manner of other baubles with census related message emblazoned on them. Dance and Karate groups also gave demonstrations.

This year, as in years past, vendor booths lined both sides of the street instead of being run down the center of the road as some local owners of the downtown businesses would prefer.  Surprisingly, for some downtown shops, street fair days can be an 'off-days' in a business sense because (in their opinion) the setup is not condusive to pedestrians viewing their storefronts. These business owners seem to believe that this is because the stores are somewhat occluded by the fair booths which back right up to the sidewalks in front of their shops.

In the past, some downtown business owners have unsuccessfully lobbied to have the vendor booths set up in the center of the street instead of along the sides. When asked about this John Walla of the Chamber of Commerce cited safety issues and noted that the business owners who rented space in front of their stores, "...had a good day and drew people into their shops".

Street fair attendance was great.  As "Big John" Walla of the Chamber of Commerce strode into the Miller and Lux building where the Los Banos Rotary Club was putting on their traditional pancake breakfast Saturday morning you could tell from his smile that he thought the day was shaping up nicely. His broad grin told the story and a look outside revealed that the public had turned out in good numbers as well. Later, in a Monday morning interview, John estimated that the 'steady flow' of attendees numbered between three and four thousand and he called the 2010 street fair "the best attended with the most vendors ever" with 144 spaces sold and only 4 no-show vendors.  He also noted that he wanted to thank Allied Waste, the city maintenance workers, the Los Banos Police Department and the Police Volunteers for all of their hard work.

John summed up the entire event saying, "We couldn't have ordered up a better scenario!".

The Los Banos Rotary Club was also out in force making delicious pancake breakfasts. They even delivered to the booths up and down main street!

If everyone in Los Banos would just take 1 or 2 hours a month to do something to help their neighborhood or their community we could truly make Los Banos the gem of the valley.

The above is only my personal opinion and I strongly encourage readers to seek out more information from expert sources. Copyright 2010