Locals love Tuesdays

Tuesday nights have been special for Huntington Beach locals who could count on some sweet discounts on downtown Main Street.

“When we heard about it, we decided to come down and take advantage of our local Huntington Beach resident status,” said Roger Forest, a police officer with Los Angeles Police Department, who would love to see downtown Main Street transformed into a pedestrian mall.

He liked the 20% discount he got for dinner with his wife and his toddler daughter at Smokin’ Mo’s BBQ and the fact that there are fewer peopleand more parking available on Tuesdays.

The concept, borrowed from downtown San Luis Obispo that has a similar weeknight discount for its residents, is yet to be promoted aggressively, said Stephen Daniels, owner of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory on Main Street and president of the downtown business improvement district association.

“We are really going to hit it aggressively with the city starting in March,” Daniels said.

The city’s economic development department, along with the downtown business group, will offer two hours of free parking when Main Street will be closed to automobile traffic on 12 Tuesday nights and five festival weekends starting in March. Plans are afoot to get live entertainment and bands to perform on Tuesday nights as well as rope in a farmers’ market that will sell organic produce and meats. Downtown restaurant owners are thinking of setting up tables on the street too, Daniels said.

“People didn’t quite understand how to market and promote locals’ nights,” Daniels said. “Local people have got to have other reasons to come down, and not just because of a discount.”

Councilwoman Jill Hardy, who worked on the Main Street Closure Study committee, supported the idea of a locals night.

“We hear from residents, ‘If Main Street were closed, we would go there a lot more often,’ and having the locals’ night is the only way to find out,” she said at a council meeting in November.

Tuesday nights are “pretty popular,” according to Councilman Don Hansen. “It’s a way of getting an idea of what closing Main Street would look like.”

Local Todd Nelson, a Tuesday regular at the Hurricanes Bar & Grill on Main Street, said he would visit more often if restaurants and clubs offered better discounts.

“A discount on the cover charge would be great!” he said.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

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