Banning Melrose Avenue vendors at Iowa football games? Iowa City will never get away with it!

This is beyond belief, so I'll link to the story and then comment.

http://easterniowagovernment.com/2011/04/14/iowa-city-may-ban-game-day-vendors-outside-kinnick-stadium/

Do the powers that be understand the vile that tens of thousands of Iowans will have for the city of Iowa City if it sees this through? No vendors on Melrose Avenue? No turkey legs and burgers and other pregame necessities of life?

University Heights, which is basically on the other side of the railroad bridge next to Kinnick Stadium, has already made itself vendor-proofed. University Heights. What a concept. But Melrose Avenue? Melrose without meat with on a stick? Preposterous!

Not to worry, Hawkeye game-day denizens. The Iowa City City Council will discuss this next Monday, and by then the indignation from the public (the public that don't include neighborhood residents, that is) will be deafening. The city will have no choice to cave.

But this is Iowa City, after all, the Athens of the Midwest. And that doesn't mean Athens, Georgia.

Of course, if you're the Iowa athletic department, you may not see this as a bad thing. After all, it's not their fault, it's those Iowa City meanies. But hey, there's plenty of space on university grounds to sell burritos and egg rolls, and put the money in Hawkeye coffers instead of those of some hard-working types who depend on this for part of their annual income.

Fans have to eat, so it would be the humanitarian thing to do.

Look, I'm not blind to the plight of the homeowner. I own one myself.  I think anyone who leaves garbage or worse on someone else's lawn ought to be deposited in the nearest dumpster. Waterboarding might be a fitting punishment for trespassers. Sure, it's a little beyond the pale. But darn it, you kids get OFF OF MY LAWN!

Still, I kind of figure that if I buy a house close to a major-university football stadium, I'm going to have to put up with the circus coming through my neighborhood seven times a year. If you can't embrace or at least accept that, don't buy a house near a stadium.

Doesn't Iowa City understand? This is Iowa. College football Saturdays are all that a lot of people have. I guess some people like watching the leaves turn color in northeast Iowa, and there are 50 or 60 casinos. And there's RAGBRAI, but that's not for everyone, especially people whose diet consists largely of turkey legs and double cheeseburgers.

So leave the vendors alone. In fact, add more vendors. The situation needs to be expanded, broadened. You can't get a good pasta dish on Melrose on game days, or a nice piece of tilapia, or some New York cheesecake.

No vendors on Melrose? Isn't it bad enough Iowa City hasn't run all the hippies out of the downtown Ped Mall to appease Ricky Stanzi?