Council works with Wine Train By Jesse Duarte STAFF WRITER Friday, May 01, 2009 It’s official — there’s been a thaw in the cold war between the Napa Valley Wine Train and the city of St. Helena. Despite a long history of lawsuits and rancor between the two sides, the city council agreed Tuesday to form a committee to work with the Wine Train to get a limited number of passengers into St. Helena, at least on a trial basis. “I think that it’s a very different day than it was just a few years ago in terms of willingness to talk, both on your part and on ours,” Councilmember Eric Sklar told Wine Train CEO Greg McManus. The committee will be made up of councilmembers, Chamber of Commerce representatives, members of the public and city staff. In February Ron Sculatti of Mario’s Mens Clothing circulated a petition asking the city to engage in talks with the Wine Train, and local merchants were quick to jump on board. “I know it’s been going on for 20 years, but things change over time, and I think our community is a little more relaxed over this,” Sculatti told the council. “I’m not saying it’s a good or bad idea to let the passengers off,” said St. Helena’s Bonnie Thoreen. “I think it’s time to discuss the issues and to change our paradigm.” McManus, who took the reins of the Wine Train after founder Vince DeDomenico died, shied away from specifics about numbers of passengers. But he floated the idea of letting passengers off at 11 a.m. and giving them two hours to shop. He made it clear he didn’t want to be presumptuous toward the city, as Wine Train officials were accused of being in the past. He even warned that the plan might not work financially for the Wine Train. “Our business model was not built to be able to do this,” he said. Mayor Del Britton went along with forming the committee, but he was the only councilmember who said he opposed letting passengers off. He suggested “getting a feel for what the community, other than the business community, thinks about this before we move forward.” “The community has spoken over and over again over the years that they don’t want that to occur,” he said. “We’ve spent literally thousands upon thousands of dollars in legal fees to ensure that it doesn’t happen, and yet we’re going to say, ‘Well, let’s forget about all that stuff.’ I think it’s nonsense.” Sklar said the legal battle was over whether the city should have any say over how the Wine Train would affect St. Helena. “And we do now,” he said.
Cheers! for the Wine Train History made in St. Helena By John Lindblom STAFF WRITER Thursday, July 09, 2009 On Friday night last week, the night before St. Helena joined the rest of the nation in saluting 233 years of independence, it celebrated its interdependence. Sort of. The July 3 celebration was for the arrival of the Wine Train — or, to be perfectly clear, the arrival of 50 passengers who were the first-ever to be allowed to step down from the Wine Train into St. Helena. The auspiciousness of the occasion didn’t resonate with everyone. Although Councilmembers Bonnie Schoch and Eric Sklar were on hand to welcome the train and greet the passengers, Councilmembers Sharon Crull and Catarina Sanchez were not present, nor was Mayor Del Britton. Crull said she wanted to meet the Wine Train but had family obligations. Sanchez had no comment. Britton said he was in Napa at the time and never planned to be a participant in the ribbon-cutting ceremony held near the train’s turn-around point behind the St. Helena fire station. That left it to others to talk about the relevance. “It’s pretty cool!” chirped Patsy Dunbar of Boise, Idaho, who was making her first-ever trip to St. Helena after reading about the train ride on the Internet. “We feel like pioneers,” said her friend, Gina Messenger, from the same city. After a cacophonous welcome consisting of train whistles, town sirens, exuberant exchanges between passengers and townspeople and champagne hailing the train’s historic arrival, the 50 riders and their significance were pretty much swallowed up by the crowd of Cheers! St. Helena III, which organizers said exceeded 3,000 — triple the size of the Cheers! II turnout in June. As small a number of outsiders as it was who rode the train here, the event could be seen as St. Helena’s acknowledgment that at least the merchants feel the need for patronage of people from elsewhere, given the state of the economy. “The primary purpose was to get a little interest going in St. Helena,” said Chamber CEO/President Nancy Levenberg. “People are talking about how it feels like a new day, not just because of Cheers!, but because of (the attitudes of) the City Council. The Wine Train is a perfect example of how we can pass an ordinance to change 50 years (actually 22) of history. There is an openness to trying new solutions and new ways of doing things. Let’s do a little trial period … I think that’s what the City Council should be doing.” Before getting carried away, a trial period is exactly what the Wine Train’s debarking-passengers program was — something well short of an opening of the flood gates to out-of-towners. Although Cheers! publicity called it a “Sold Out” train, in fact only one car was designated specifically for the St. Helena trip. But it was sold out. Moreover, it will be a month — and at least a couple of dozen Wine Trains will have been in and out of St. Helena — before the next 50 out-of-towners are legally disgorged on Aug. 7. The city and the Wine Train have an agreement to continue that practice through the last Cheers! event of the year in October. Even so, the occasion stirred comment. Writer-publicist Paul Franson proposed that the program be extended to every Friday and Saturday. “It’s just great to have the train coming up to Cheers!” he said. “Now you can come up here and have a nice dinner — assuming that it continues.” Norm Alumbaugh, owner of the Eagle and Rose Inn, was more emphatic, chiding those who once stood adamantly against letting passengers off in St. Helena. “They should have done this many years ago when they started fighting with the Wine Train,” he said. “They suddenly realized that part of the economy is the Wine Train. That’s after they lost millions of dollars over a long period of time. It’s too bad that that happened. “I remember one of the merchants here saying, ‘I don’t want Wine Train people to come in here because they’re eating their ice cream cones and dropping ice cream all over the floor,’” Alumbaugh added. “The same people who are for it now were against it then,” said his wife, Evonne. The scene faded to the downtown Cheers! setting, delightfully enlivened by the mass of good-natured, wine-sipping revelers jostling their way through the streets, shops and cafes. Cheers! organizers reported that 65 wineries poured at 55 locations. Two streets were closed off. Live music was provided by four bands. Shops sold a bunch of merchandise. And there was a good variety of food provided by the restaurants and street vendors. One of the restaurateurs, Robert Simon, was seemingly delighted by the wall-to-wall crowd at his a/k/a Bistro on Main Street. “It makes a huge difference for us on Friday night,” he said. “I think this is exactly what St. Helena wants and needs. The carry-over for us would be great if local shops stayed open for an hour or two longer. “Everybody has their own sense of what (St. Helena) needs for business, but my sense is that it needs more activity,” he added. “You go to Calistoga at 9 o’clock at night, half the shops are still open, people are walking the streets. People have to learn that St. Helena is the place to come again.”
