Outdoor vendors upset after Fresno’s next Arthop goes indoors

FRESNO, Calif. ( KSEE ) – The next Arthop on Aug. 1 will have no outdoor vendors, activities, or entertainment, but it will still have exhibits and vendors at indoor venues.

At a press conference on Friday, Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias cited extreme heat and public safety as the city’s reasoning for only allowing Arthop to happen indoors next month, but the main sentiment was that Arthop has gotten too big.

“It’s literally the consequence of their success,” Arias said.

Arthop began as a “gallery-crawl” in the 90s. Each event drew maybe a couple hundred people according to Arias. Now, the monthly event draws crowds of 15,000 with street vendors, artists, and performers lining dozens of blocks from Downtown to the Tower District.

Arthop is an unpermitted event, and most of the vendors sell without permits as well. This keeps the event free for artists and attendees but then isn’t able to hold any party responsible for the extra costs incurred for more police, traffic enforcement, and public oversight.

“It required quite a bit of public resources to pull off an event that’s safe and secure for everyone. So we’ll spend the next few weeks assessing what is the best path forward to returning to both permitted and unpermitted outdoor events,” Arias said.

Several spaces at Arthop are occupied by permitted organizations like Fresno Street Eats, a food truck network and organizer.

“We followed every single rule,” Mike Oz, president of Fresno Street Eats, said. “So to say that we’re the same as a guy that’s setting up on the corner, selling beers out of a cooler; it’s not the same.”

While Arias says any vendor may still participate indoors during the Aug. 1 Arthop, Oz says that’s impossible for a food truck, so they’re going to miss out on the most lucrative night of the month.

“This is going to hurt a lot of small businesses. I hope that what the city is doing, they get it right,” Oz said.

Arias says city officials, the city attorney’s office, code enforcement, ABC, and several other organizations will be meeting to come up with a plan for the September Arthop.

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