Good luck keeping the neighborhood vibe of your event with all the people hauling their kids in from Gresham and Beaverton to sell stuff. Let's just remove all inspectors from Alberta and see how long it takes a someone with no knowledge of proper food handling to cause a food borne illness. Just don't bitch about permit fees and then get upset when your neighborhood school gets closed. Sometimes regulations (and taxes!) are a good thing.

That last photo is pukedelic. I hope that dude can reiki the e. coli out of my system.

The real issue with Last Thursday for years has been that the attendees and vendors want to keep this an event not so much about money exchanging hands but a celebration of creativity. Sure, there are a few vendors that see Dollar signs when they see a crowd of 10,000 but the vast majority of attendees are not there looking for an excuse to spend money and while most of the vendors would be very glad to sell some stuff they are typically equally or more interested in contributing to the vibe.

Some of the coolest stuff that happens during the event clearly has nothing to do with money. This months show at the old clown house was amazing and had clearly taken many hours to set up but as far as I could tell there was not even a tip bucket. Thanks Levy for putting together that show! There are many other examples of amazing creativity all along the street and all throughout the event.

The lemonade story was cute and brought support from people that might not really like Last Thursday all that much, were they to attend the event live. The story illustrates the frustration of running a community event with limited interference from the government. And yes, it is a community event. A community of like minded if not a neighborhood event based on geographic proximity. For years it ran itself with little supervision and can continue to do so for years to come and hopefully decades. The community knows how to self manage and wants to do just that. They knows how to be good neighbors, how to pee in porta potties and how to clean up after themselves. They know when the party is over and it's time to go home. Given an opportunity the they will make sure that the event stays sustainable. Hopefully the poster child Julie has provided the momentum needed to keep the event a community event.