Bike rally boosts Eureka Springs

Bikers park their bikes outside of the Pied Piper Pub & Inn and the Cathouse Lounge on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, in downtown Eureka Springs. Many bikers are in the region for the weekend for the 14th annual Bikes, Blues and BBQ.
Bikers park their bikes outside of the Pied Piper Pub & Inn and the Cathouse Lounge on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, in downtown Eureka Springs. Many bikers are in the region for the weekend for the 14th annual Bikes, Blues and BBQ.

EUREKA SPRINGS - As motorcycle enthusiasts descend on the Interstate 540 corridor in Northwest Arkansas for the annual Bikes, Blues and BBQ Motorcycle Rally, Eureka Springs business owners are looking forward to benefiting from the city’s prime location near the rally’s Fayetteville epicenter.

Mike Maloney, director of the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission, said the city’s location - an hour or so’s ride from the rally’s headquarters, either by Arkansas 62 or U.S. 412 - puts Eureka Springs in a plum spot to attract just the right amount of attendees.

“We’re kind of blessed in a way that the overflow audience of Bikes, Blues and BBQ looks to us as a destination location,” Maloney said. “It’s an interesting ride in any direction to get here; the roads are good and visually interesting, and the town prepares in a good way.”

The commission administers a 3 percent tax on restaurants and lodging within the city, and it uses the revenue to advertise andpromote Eureka Springs as a tourist destination. According to data provided by the commission, revenue seems to dip in September, between summer’s peak and increases in October and November.

In 2012, for example, commission tax revenue dipped from $130,589 in August to $103,829 in September, before rising to $136,505 in October. Historically, the motorcycle rally has been in mid-to-late September, early October or a weekend that bridges the two months.

For establishments generally geared toward attracting bikers, however, the rally tends to push them to their limits.

Early Thursday afternoon, the parking lot in front of the Pied Piper Pub & Inn was filled with hundreds of gleaming black and chrome motorcycles, stretching from the curb right up to the pub. Owner Fatima Treuer said the 125-seat dining area and the outdoor beer garden, which seats an additional 125 and is only open for special events, had been full for most of the day.

“We’re at capacity,” Treuer said during a shortbreak. “We’re busier than we can possibly handle right now.

“With the beer garden, we double our capacity, and our kitchen doesn’t get any bigger,” Treuer said. “So it takes a lot of pre-planning, a lot of hard hours, just calculating what we’re going to need, what we’re going to do to make sure it runs smooth.”

Treuer said most of her staff members, from waitresses to cooks, typically work double shifts throughout the rally. She said most of them make enough in overtime wages and additional tips to help pay their rent through the winter, which is often a much less lucrative time to work in the city.

“Because we’re such a seasonal place, it’s important for them to be able to make a chunk of change, a little savings plan, for the winter,” Treuer said. “There are nights in the winter when they come in and make only $10 to $20.”

Fatima’s brother, Latigo Treuer, who manages the restaurant, said the Pied Piper had ordered about 700 cases and 20 kegs of beer, as well as about 250 pounds of ground beef, to make it through the weekend.

“I think on Sunday, we’ll go through a case of vodka in a couple of hours, just making bloody marys,” Latigo Treuer said.

Fatima Treuer said that while the rally was a boon to her employees, the Pied Piper, which she has owned for 13 years, typically only breaks even.

“We have to rent storage spaces, rent equipment for ice and refrigeration, and stuff like that,” Treuer said. “All of our expenses quadruple. There’s a margin for profit for every item on the menu, but that’s ate up by these extra expenses. We don’t make a huge amount of money - we barely break even on this weekend.”

In addition to added patronage, rally participants also present additional responsibilities for local law enforcement and emergency medical services. Eureka Springs Police Chief Earl Hyatt said he had already increased the number of patrol officers on the city’s streets.

“It’s keeping us a little busy,” Hyatt said. “It impacts our traffic quite a bit, so we send more officers to help out with congested intersections. We just try to keep the throngs moving. Accidents go up quite a bit.”

Shane Stanley, a captain with the Eureka Springs Fire Department, said ambulance crews had responded to about 10 motorcycle accidents between Thursday and noon Friday.

“We’ve had about triple our call volume for a normal weekend already,” Stanley said.

Stanley said most of the accidents occurred at low speeds because of heavy traffic congestion, although some bikers had suffered serious injuries on Arkansas 62 and Arkansas 23, just outside city limits.

“You have people coming in from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas,” Stanley said. “There’s nothing like 62 in Kansas. Some of it’s inexperience, some of it’s not knowing what to expect when they get here.”

Stanley said there had been no motorcycle-related fatalities in the area as of Friday.

Hyatt said that in addition to his staff of 10 full-time police officers, he had also activated the department’s four reserve officers for the weekend. Aside from elevated accidents involving motorcyclists, the rally hasn’t historically raised crime rates in Eureka Springs, Hyatt said.

“I think we get a limited number of verbal confrontations about noise,” Hyatt said. “But most of the people who come into town are conscientious. There are just a few people who actually get obnoxious about it.”

Acco rding to annual crime statistics provided by the Police Department, crime rates in September and October, from 2010 to 2012, remained well belowthe summer peaks. Reported crimes in each of those two months typically account for between 9.4 percent and 13.7 percent of the city’s total annual crimes, according to the data.

“It’s just an increase in traffic around town, and that’s mainly just through the day into evening hours,” Hyatt said. “Once it gets dark, everyone’s where they’re going to be, and it calms down.”

Hyatt said Eureka’s distance from Fayetteville likely tended to attract a mellower contingent of participants.

“Most of the people who come to Eureka want to be away from the center of the rally,” Hyatt said. “They want to be included, but they want to be away from the center of it.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 09/22/2013

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