ART FAIR CANCELLED IN ESTHETICS FLAP

Found this -- dating to 1995. How quickly 12 years go by. Notice that it pre-dates the art-on-a-stick phenomenon, the bogus "free art fair parking" raids, and the premeditated false-directions-to-Zingermans campaigns. Ah, the good old days.

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Ann Arbor: Collapsing in a heap of bitterness and ill-feeling, Ann Arbor's famed Street Art Fair has finally been cancelled. After years of declining attendance and waning interest (last year's event drew 28 human visitors and a schnauzer), the fair was no longer providing the city with the revenue draw that was its admitted original purpose.

A State Street area restaurant owner who asked not to be identified sobbed, "Time was, I'd move more Rolling Rock than you could shake a credit card at." Last year, his sales for the entire 5 days totalled 2 pints of shandy (sold to some confused English tourists) and a bottle of Mad Dog. "And what am I gonna do with all these leftover crawfish?" he added. A spokesman for the crawfish declined to comment.

The demise of the fair is generally traced to civic ordinances passed during the administration of Joseph "The Bohemian" McLuggage, the city's first (and so far only) Surrealist Party mayor. Elected during a moment of inattention on the part of the Republicans, McLuggage's brief ascendency resulted in a flurry of unusual laws, such as the creation of a Visual Environmental Protection Agency, charged with cleaning up toxic arts and crafts; the establishment of a "Superfund" to pay for a 75% reduction in the number of mini-vans; and the so-called "Brady Bill," named after Mert Brady, a University of Michigan software engineer who lost most of the feeling in his big toe after someone ran over it with a stroller. The Brady Bill requires a 30-year waiting period prior to the purchase of "wheeled infant transport assault vehicles," during which time the applicant is checked carefully for sanity, driving ability, and prior history of art fair attendance.

Staff at Ann Arbor's Odd Town Tavern feigned indifference to the loss of Art Fair revenue, claiming that most of their regular customers were only dimly aware of the annual event, anyway. Management also denied a report that a clandestine, unofficial "Tempeh Fair" was being planned for the alley behind the bar.