Following a tumultuous summer, the city has brought the hammer down on ArtHop.

The beloved street fair on Fulton Street that would typically take place the first Thursday of every month has been moved to the third Wednesday of every month.

The street fair’s new name is Why Not Wednesday, in an attempt to separate and clearly distinguish it from the long-established ArtHop open house of galleries and studios.

Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents the downtown area, assured event goers that the street fair and galleries would remain the same in essence.

“Nothing’s changed if you want to do indoor venues or you want to do artwork,” Arias told The Collegian. “If you want an outdoor street festival experience, that’s been moved to Wednesdays.”

Not everyone was happy with the change. A heavily circulated petition on social media received almost 6,000 signatures calling for the reinstatement of a Thursday street fair, as many feared the event would be gone forever.

Fresno Street Eats founder Mike Osegueda said he isn’t opposed to the change, but he wishes more would’ve been done to maintain a Thursday spot.

“I felt like Thursdays were what we needed to preserve,” Osegueda said. “It’s like you have a show you watch on a certain night of the week and all of a sudden it changes. It’s hard to get people to change that habit.”

Violence in the Past

The decision came following a sequence of violent altercations that occurred around some of this year’s and last year’s renditions of the event, including a shooting where 40 rounds were fired, according to The Fresno Bee.

While there were various reported issues, most incidents didn’t occur during the actual ArtHop event but rather afterward in the area.

In the past, cities like Gilroy have had to cancel entire street fairs due to violent incidents. Arias said he didn’t want the same fate for ArtHop.

“Some of the folks that were coming out here started to hijack ArtHop,” said Mayor Jerry Dyer. “We had a couple of violent incidents… and we wanted to make sure that wwe had a more coordinated and more organized event.”

Origins of ArtHop

ArtHop began in 1996 with the Fresno Arts Council hosting the event in several downtown galleries. Over the years, street vendors began setting up along Fulton Street and crowds grew. The city remained uninvolved.

ArtHop gallery events and the street fair would occur concurrently on Fulton Street every first Thursday of the month.

ArtHop gallery events were also available every fourth Thursday, with these being citywide, meaning any building or business could host artwork upon request from the Fresno Arts Council.

The art galleries and street fairs were always two separate events.

“Slowly, vendors started to develop on the street,” Arias said. “It coincided with new state laws around how you handle street vendors.”

Arias said that these laws made it easier for vendors to set up and do business.

Safety Concerns

At its height, ArtHop drew upwards of 15,000 people in its original Thursday night spot, including both gallery and street fair attendees. However, city officials said since there was no set structure or organization, the crowds became too large to manage.

“Now you have 15,000 people and now you have alcohol being sold,” Arias said. “You have cannabis being sold to minors…there’s a lot of Instagram videos [that Arias said he would be sent] of kids buying Buzz Balls and dancing the night away on Fulton when they’re 16 and 15.”

Since ArtHop was a non-permitted event, vendors were allowed to set up with little interference from county or city officials; it was essentially a free-for-all.

“There were a lot of areas that were on their own,” Osegueda said.“Problems could’ve manifested.”

With the city involved, vendors now pay a $50 fee while food trucks pay a $100 fee. Road blocks, street sanitation, police presence and access to restrooms are also now guaranteed by the city.

The city has agreed to absorb these costs in order to provide a better experience for event goers and not give the vendors financial responsibilities for these services.

“Closing the street costs about $3,000 a day,” Arias said.“Police are about $15,000 a day. Organizing time, it’s about another $10,000 a day. Somebody has to be there before you, closing down the street, power washing the sidewalk, making sure you’re in the right spot, making sure you’re the right distance from people, making sure trash cans are in the right place.”

Given the recent violence from the past couple of years, police presence was a big contributing factor in the decision to move the day. Police in Fresno are overstaffed on Wednesdays in order to allow officers to attend various training sessions like de-escalation, gun safety and other tactical circumstances.

The surplus of officers on duty allows for more units to be available for Why Not Wednesday without having to pay officers more for overtime.

Vendors Reflect on the Changes

Many saw this change coming when the city canceled the street fair portion of ArtHop in August, particularly because of the heat wave happening that week.

ArtHop vendor Angel Valenzuela said the sudden shift was jarring.

“Once [they] said indoors, we said ‘we can’t do it because there’s not gonna be a lot of space,” Valenzuela said. “We didn’t think it was gonna be worth it.”

While unexpected, Valenzuela said he and his friends are willing to make the jump to Wednesdays.

“Now we’re probably gonna transition into Why Not Wednesday,” Valenzuela said. “We have to adapt.”

Arias said he and Dyer took the month of August to confer with vendors on what to do next.

For September’s event, Arias and his team cut out the street fair portion of ArtHop entirely and held the first Why Not Wednesday on Sept. 18.

He added the city offered for longstanding vendors to be a part of the new Why Not Wednesday event.

“We invited everyone who wanted to be part of the solution,” Arias said. “We said, okay, you’ve been vending on Fulton Street for 10 years, would you like to submit a special event application and you handle the whole street on Thursdays? And not one of them said yes.”

Some vendors were still not convinced after the city’s first Why Not Wednesday.

“ArtHop had truly become an event run by the people, for the people, and it had much success,” said vendor Lucy Oropeza, who has now been involved in both ArtHop and Why Not Wednesday. “Success each month highlights the community’s commitment to uplifting small businesses and celebrating creativity. ArtHop not only added beauty to our downtown but also helped strengthen the local economy and the sense of community we all cherish.”

While Oropeza is still setting up shop to sell honey at Why Not Wednesday, she says she isn’t sure about the future of the event.

Osegueda doesn’t believe the issue is black and white.

“Everyone thinks that they’re doing the right thing,” Osegueda said. “Everybody’s just looking at it from a different perspective.”

Dyer maintained he was happy with how the new event turned out and is excited to see its growth.

“I talked to about 75% of the vendors tonight, every one of them said thank you,” Dyer said. “They liked the way that it was organized, there was more structure…When you look at the number of people that turned out tonight…well over 2000 people. People are still coming out.”

Why Not Wednesday and beyond

September’s Why Not Wednesday saw an attendance of about 4,200 people, Arias said.

“The goal is to continue to have events like this downtown because the more people that come here, the more vibrant it becomes, more people want to live here,” Dyer said. “We want that vibrancy beyond 8 to 5, Monday through Friday.”

Arias and his team plan on expanding the Why Not Wednesday event by creating new amphitheaters for musical performances and potentially having the event take place every week.

“So my hope is that this really is owned by the organizers, the vendors and the artists, and that it does expand to four times a month,” Arias said. “And when, and if it’s ready, then we’ll be ready to facilitate and accommodate that.”

Why Not Wednesday will be held every third Wednesday while ArtHop galleries will continue to be held every first and fourth Thursday of the month, with the fourth remaining a citywide event.

Correction: In a previous version of this story, a shortened nickname version of  Mike Osegueda’s last name was used. The story now accurately displays his full last name.