The Hampton County Watermelon Festival Committee debated the subject of on- and off-site vendors during its July 28 meeting but took no action, leaving the matter still very much up in the air for debate.
Controversy has risen among the all-volunteer committee dedicated to promoting the county and its festival.
The debate centers on whether to continue the practice of issuing permits for off-site food and concession vendors, or to require all vendors to set up shop at the same location during the annual Watermelon Festival.
On-site permits are issued by the festival to vendors that do business at the spaces the festival provides. Off-site vendors are not located with the rest of the vendors in the space provided by the festival and often have to pay a landowner for where they sit.
The issue has become a hot topic among out-of-town vendors - who say even though they have been coming to the festival for years other, more local vendors get better spots - and Hampton County vendors, who say home folks should get treated better than out-of-county folks.
During the week of the festival, the committee has jurisdiction over vendor permits, not the Town of Hampton, and the Festival's executive committee recently decided to cease issuing off-site permits beginning in 2012.
Festival Chairman Robert Brown said he has lost a lot of sleep over the issue and expressed his concern about being fair.
"The problem I have with off-site vendors is we lose control of who's coming in," Brown said. "Vendors call me and say ‘Why can't I move somewhere else too?'...It comes back on me."
Jeff and Chinon Conder, who are on the Watermelon Festival Committee and who oversee the Mellon Belles and Mellon Beaus, also sell elephant ears, and this year they did it off-site.
They paid business owner Raymond Mitchell to set up shop at his business located across from the courthouse, Hampton Auto Center.
They both argue that they should be able to sell off-site.
"I don't know when this first came down but I really take it personally," Chinon Conder said with tears in her eyes. "I am not a rich person. I am a dirt-poor person. I give my heart and soul to Hampton County. I can't get a good place at the festival? I do think we should take care of each other."
She said her husband and family had donated around $10,000 to schools and Relay to Life in Hampton County in recent years through their food business.
"We're not trying to hurt anybody," Brown said.
Jeff Conder, reading from a statement, said that off-site vendors have to meet the same insurance and DHEC requirements as on-site vendors and were charged the same fee as an on-site vendor without being provided any of the resources an on-site vendor gets.
He also argued that off-site vendors have added costs because they pay the land owner where they park and pay for their own resources (utilities, etc.).
Conder argued that off-site vendors were good for the festival because it creates diversity and prompts people to look around. He says it also gives local merchants like Mitchell a chance to recoup some of the revenue lost since they have to close because of the festival.
Brown proposed a possible solution of a drawing for vendor spots that included an early deadline.
Ann Long, a longtime member of the festival's executive committee, asked if the committee was going to let off-site vendors be Hampton County vendors.
She said she saw nothing wrong with being partial to Hampton County vendors.
Brown countered that volunteers on the Watermelon Festival Committee were not there to help themselves but to benefit Hampton County.
Dawn Gibson, a relatively new member, said that each vendor should be assigned a number and that the numbers should be dropped in a hat and the vendors should be selected in a draw.
Vice Chairman Jimmie Polk said that a draw wouldn't work because he didn't think the festival could tell a private property owner who to have on their property.
In the end the committee tabled the discussion for a later date.
"I think we need to research this thing a little bit further," said Polk. "I don't want to make a decision tonight."
Brown also agreed.
"I would rather wait and make a good decision," Brown said.
The next meeting of the Watermelon Festival will be Aug. 25 at 7 p.m. in the social hall of the United Methodist Church on Mulberry Street.
In other matters, Brown reported that because the summer issue of Sandlapper magazine came out late this year because of production problems, the state's non-profit magazine has agreed to give the Watermelon Festival another article in Spring 2012 to promote the next festival.