SandPoint Antique & Design Market is closing November 1st.

SandPoint Antique & Design Market is closing November 1st.

We know many people who want to keep it going, so do we.  However, we have lost money on each sale we had this year.  When the City of Seattle closed Hangar 30 to large events such as ours (even as the Friends ofthe Library can hold one event next year, we cannot) this changed the flavor of Sand Point.  It changed the dynamics of the event.  We went from about 90 booths to 30 booths.
The "workshop" is small and buyers lostt heir interest in a small event.  We had a number of buyers who noticed the limited amount of sellers and the genre ofthe show.  Everyone knows what genre means but Microsoft Word Thesaurus breaks this down quite elegantly: "one of the categories, based on form, style, or subject matter, into which artistic works of all kinds can be divided. For example, the detective novel is a genre offiction."

Sand Point was special and everyone knew it.  This was the longest running antique show Seattle ever had.  But, the City of Seattle Kingpins got into a snit.  The snit was created by the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD), the Fire Marshal's office, Seattle's City Council  and Magnuson Park officials were caught in the middle of the snit.
As we understand it, it was going to cost about $9 million to retrofit Hangar 30, which was built in the early years of WWII, and bring it up to the current Building Code. The park officials were able to arrange just over $8 million but, the"wise rulers" of the city council decided to use the $8 million for other purposes than upgrade the park.

And, the rest is history.  Hangar 30 is being used nearly every day by the tennis club.  It is used nearly everyday by some event, including occasionally, Seattle's stunt school, which has people swinging from the rafters; plus the managers of the park work every day in the side room of the hangar.  DPD apparentlyhas little concern for their safety.

The chief complaint from DPD, as I understand it, isthat the hangar would come down during a large earthquake.  Any earthquake, large enough, which may bringdown the hangar, would also bring down half of Seattle.  So the reasoning of DPD officials is stupid.  Magnuson Park was profitable and many cultural events have drowned.  They no longer exist, like Sand Point Antique & Design Market.
Can Sand Point continue to exist?  Perhaps, but not by us.  The dealers who have found Sand Point to be profitable want the event to continue. So would we but, it cannot exist as it stands.  I would suggest those dealers get to getherand plan the Phoenix to arise.  Again from Microsoft Word Thesaurus: "in ancient mythology, a bird resembling an eagle that lived for 500 years and then burned itself to death on a pyre from whose ashes another phoenix arose. It commonly appears in literature as asymbol of death and resurrection." We want to help but, can no longer fund Sand Point.  We tried for nearly a year to keep itgoing.  But, we are tired.

I have mailed this to our online mailing list but,cannot afford to mail it to our postal mailing list (about 3,000 people).  I guess word will get around and, as I just wrote, we want to help.
Finally, let Anita and I thank each and every one of you wonderful, buyers and sellers, for your years of help, support and advise.  We will tearfully miss you.
Dennis