Staff Reports
CHEERS
• OLLIE’S OPENING: If for no other reason than we don’t have to look at the old Media Play sign and wonder how nothing could move into what seems like a prime spot for business, Wednesday’s opening of Ollie’s Bargain Outlet was a great thing for the Falls. If the crowds Wednesday and Thursday were any indication, the new store will be a good thing for the business district for years to come.
• TERMINAL OPENING: Getting a good look at the new $31.5-million terminal at Niagara Falls International Airport Wednesday was nice. There’s just no comparison to the old facility. What we really liked was hearing NFTA officials and local politicians state that there was still a lot of work to do in making the airport a real success. As state Sen. George Maziarz said, “This is the end of one very long journey, but it’s the beginning of a whole new journey and that journey begins today.”
• DWI BLITZ: As regular travelers of the Robert Moses parkway we couldn’t have been happier to see Niagara Falls police conducting a DWI checkpoint at John Daly Boulevard and Falls Street late Friday/early Saturday. Falls cops only nabbed five drunken drivers but stopped 762 vehicles during the four-hour detail. As Traffic Division Capt. Salvatore Pino said, “Roving patrols would have given us more arrests. But we wouldn’t have reached 762 and we told those people we are not going to arrest you today because you didn’t drive drunk. We told them, we will arrest you if you drive drunk in the future and how much is it worth to get that message out to that many people?”
JEERS
• DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT: The city’s Economic Development Director Peter Kay and Fran Iusi, director of business development, were recently invited to a Niagara Falls Tourism Advisory Board meeting and their words didn’t offer any hope for a turnaround downtown. Specifically, Kay had to be corrected by advisory board members on what the city owns on a portion of Old Falls Street and Iusi later admitted the city does not currently have a formal marketing strategy. It all just leaves you shaking your head — once again.
