PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Christmas Village will have a different setup this year as organizers try to make the experience ADA-compliant. They\u2019re doing away with walk-in booths and going strictly for over-the-counter commerce.<\/p>\n
Drew Fisher said when he received an email from village organizers about the planned changes, he knew his business, Color and Flame, was likely out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like a mini store, like a mini-boutique when you come in. Everything is out, laid nicely on shelves. Also, because it\u2019s the winter time, we have a nice little heater inside. So people really like to come in; it feels comfortable. They can take their time and peruse,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was going to be our fourth year, and then this huge curveball was thrown to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
KYW Newsradio obtained the email from German American Marketing, Inc. It said permanent ramps were proposed instead of closing off the booths, but the required ramp length plus the handrails that needed to be installed took the option off the table.<\/p>\n
It left only one option: making the booths inaccessible to be in 100% compliance.<\/p>\n
Fisher said selling his kind of goods over the counter, like candles, perfumes, lotions and more, ruins the experience. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving that interrupted with us saying, \u2018Here, try this one. Here, try this one. Hold one, let me go and get you the other scent.\u2019 We just knew that wasn\u2019t gonna work for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fisher\u2019s business will have to rely on just online sales this holiday season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is actually a huge financial hit for us. We can\u2019t just pivot to another event because all the events for this kind of end-of-year seasonal thing where it would have been spanning a month, month and a half. They\u2019re all filled up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lindsay Gradel, who\u2019s been a quasi-spokesperson for vendors coping with the change, said not only is it a big financial hit for those dropping out, but it\u2019s going to change the whole Philly Christmas Village vibe for customers.<\/p>\n
\u201c… It really does truly change the whole experience,” Gradel said. “For it to shift like that where they have these permanent tabletops\u2026it just doesn\u2019t work in our world.\u201d<\/p>\n
German American Marketing, Inc. has not responded to a KYW Newsradio request for comment about the changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Christmas Village will have a different setup this year as organizers try to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46128,22961,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-298810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-ada-compliance","tag-christmas-village","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}