Crime & Safety

Face Off Between Furthur Fans and Parking Company in MTA Lot

The MTA police showed up to assess the situation.

Since the Furthur shows started at The Capitol Theatre on Monday, the lot where Port Chester commuters park in the morning is by night transformed into “Shakedown Street,” where fans gather to eat, drink and vend their goods before heading into the show. The Grateful Dead have a song by that name and “Shakedown” pops up at any Dead-related or jam band show.

After the show, while Cap crowds head home with Grateful Dead classics ringing in their ears, a few tired fans end their nights picking up cigarette butts and trash and sweeping the parking lot so that Port Chester commuters would not have to deal with the remnants of their partying, they said.

But this morning the fans woke to the unfriendly face of a manager who works for Laz Parking, the company the MTA pays to manage the lot. Apparently, Laz was called to the lot for clean up and the manager was not happy to find several vans worth of self-described “hippies” were “camping out” in the lot.

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What some described as a “heated verbal dispute” was defused when a Capitol Theatre employee spoke to the manager and the MTA police showed up.

“They don’t want them camp out here,” the Cap staff member said on the condition he remain anonymous.

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Apparently, the parking manager was rude to three fans he found sleeping in the lot, and complained the people who had camped out there all night were not paying for parking. The fans said that once he complained, they made sure they were paid up for their spots. 

“I hope everyone stays cool and abides by the law and if they do they should not be menaced,” the staffer said.

The parking manager and police refused to comment on the situation but spent more than an hour standing around the lot talking.

The staffer said that the Cap worked with some fans and offered them tickets to help clean up the lot after the show. They gave them garbage bags and access to the theater’s dumpsters to help ensure the lot was looked after.

“Before the MTA crew even got here the lot was spotless,” he said. “The fans have been a great team. They filled half a dumpster.”

 The lot looked as it always does, except for the six or seven large camper vans that some of the fans have been sleeping in, and for the 20 to 30 fans themselves, sitting around talking to each other.

“We spent all night until 6 a.m. cleaning up because we want to be accepted here. We want to help out,” said James Sbarra, a fan from North Carolina who was there sell tie-dyed clothing items with his wife at Shakedown Street.

“Yea, one of our things is we never get into fights,” 22-year-old Jen Zaharias chimed in.

“We are peaceful,” said her 25-year-old friend from Texas who goes by Twitch.

Zaharias and Twitch slept in their van in the parking lot last night. Another young man they were hanging out with said he slept in a bush.

“I would have slept in the car, but I wanted to spread out a bit,” said Elias Webb, 19. Webb described himself as a “freshie,” new to camping out at Furthur shows.

“I almost got a ticket but I had to answer a riddle and I got it wrong so I didn’t get it,” he said of almost getting into the show last night. “It was something about the Holy Grail and Monty Python.”

Most of the 20 to 25 fans lingering around the Cap Wednesday morning were there for at least several nights of the run. Some will be following the band for its full summer tour.

“There is a network of people,” said Christopher Stripling when asked how he will manage following the band all summer without working. Stripling, a 33-year-old from Columbia, Indiana, says it is all about “giving love back.”

“As long as you’re honest and don’t have any crazy motives you can do anything you want in life,” he said. “It is all about manifestation.” 

Other than the parking lot manager, the fans say no one has had an issue with them and they look to maintain a peaceful presence in Port Chester.

"One lady came over and said she heard there were people dressed as hippies over here," said Greg Keeler, a 31-year-old from Florida who has been traveling for the last there months. "I told her we are not dressed up, we are hippies," he said laughing. "She told us the 60s were over."

"I told her we are real and there are going to be thousands of us all week." 

There are seven Futhur shows left, the last one is on Thursday, April 25.

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Have you seen the Furhthur fans? Have you had any problems because of the shows? Tell us in the comments. 


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