Is The New Visitor Center Hurting Gettysburg Businesses?
Cats: Battlefield Sites, Business, Gettysburg, Motorcycles/Harleys|What is surprising is what historian bloggers interested in Gettysburg have to say about the new visitor center and local businesses. Here is a snippet from Civil War Cavalry, written by lawyer-historian Eric Wittenberg:
* The Park is not always the best neighbor, as evidenced by the harm being done to the local businesses.
* The needlessly large Harley Davidson dealership owned by local blood sucking leech David LeVan brings vast amounts of noise and debauchery to a small town that neither wants nor needs it.
* LeVan, who just doesn’t know when to quit, remains absolutely determined to bring gambling to Adams County in the form of a horse track and slot machine casino, even though his last attempt to do so went down in flames by a large margin at the polls.
* Tourist traffic causes gridlock in the town and makes it impossible to find a parking space or a table in a restaurant at times.
These are all very interesting points and Wittenberg offers no evidence other than an article written in a newspaper that isn’t even a part of the community. His first comment, that the National Park is not a good neighbor as evidenced by the harm being done to the local businesses is the type of comment that I’d expect a lawyer, who is supposed to deal with facts, to refrain from. Could it perhaps be that Gettysburg businesses have taken a hit due to a nearly doubling of gas prices in the last year?
The second statement, about David LeVan and the annual bike week, is highly editorialized. I offer no opinion of LeVan, but bikers spend money. Just think about the hit the businesses in town would have taken this year had it not been for the annual Gettysburg Bike Week.
The final statement, about traffic congestion, is just funny. Geez, imagine a tourist town experiencing high traffic. Imagine so many people flooding into a historic town to eat lunch and all the tables being full of (gasp!) tourists. And this from a man who himself admits to frequently visiting Gettysburg himself, as a tourist! In other words, Wittenberg’s attitude seems to be “Let me in then close the gates behind so that no more tourists come this way then don’t spend any money on economic development and let’s all hope that a lack of tourism provides a real economic boom to a tourist town that would be nothing but ghosts were it not for the tourists we do get.”
Great analysis from a lawyer-historian. I suppose his plan is to support all the businesses in Gettysburg himself with frequent trips for research related to his books?
A note to all the tourists who visit Gettysburg every year: Welcome! We love you - whether you ride in on a Harley or the back seat of a bus. We hope you come back.
