Dear Editor,

Last Saturday around 4 p.m., when we tried to go to the Kentucky State BBQ Festival, we got caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Lebanon Road just past the U.S. 127 bypass. After sitting still and fuming for long periods, we finally managed to make a U-turn and went back home, like many others did.

I hope the folks who run the BBQ Festival will rethink the site and return it to downtown where there are multiple access roads, where many folks can walk to, where there is a huge parking garage mostly empty on weekends, and where almost $600,000 has recently been spent to enhance Weisiger Park.

Downtown Danville is a place to be proud of, not to flee. If any Main Street merchants worry about how closing off Main Street might affect their businesses, I’m sure the festival selection committee will come up with creative solutions: using Constitution Square and closing parts of Walnut Street and/or MartinLuther King Blvd., extending the festival into the many grassy adjoining unused acres at KSD, etc. 

Everyone is delighted at the entrepreneurial efforts and success of Wilderness Trail Distillery — but let’s resist the centripetal forces hollowing out and causing the death of other downtown areas.  

Please return the BBQ Festival to the historically bold beating heart of downtown Danville.

Milton Reigelman

Danville