What Are They Thinking?

[SAMIAM]

Driving past the town docks in Meredith this morning,I saw barricades and a large sign that said "Parking lot closing at 3pm July 4 for maintenance" vehicles towed at owners expense.
Is this a joke?? The biggest holiday of the year.....we finally have a huge visitor turnout ...and they are closing the parking lot in the heart of town.
There are 60 spaces there.Every one of them should be bringing people to our shops,stores,restaurants and to enjoy the fireworks.
The town should show some consideration to all of the small business' that have struggled through the winter and need the boost in sales that this holiday brings.

[Newbiesaukee]

Maybe the date is wrong and they meant April 1:)

[kjbathe]

Don't they close that parking lot and the town docks every year at 3 for the fireworks due to the proximity of the barge at the end of the docks?

[RI Swamp Yankee]

I see this on the town website:
http://www.meredithnh.org/
4th of July Fireworks Schedule:
3:00 pm – Town Docks and boat ramp closed to vehicles and boats
8:00 pm – Route 3 closed from the Route 25 intersection north to Lake Street – detours will be in place
9:20pm – Fireworks display to begin

Seems like the parking lot, docks, and park would be the place to watch the fireworks from, not the place to launch them from. .... but then again, what do us flatlanders know. ;)

[angela4design]

It's entirely due to the fireworks, where people cannot within "X" distance of the firing platform, just at the docks. They shut the parking lots AND Route 3 for the show. (Traffic is redirected to Main Street) And, rest assured, visitors find parking waaaayyyy up even the side streets. I went tonight and it was great - and very well attended show!

[rick35]

Went into Meredith by boat for icecream Saturday night and saw the orange sign at the entrance to the parking lot. We said couldn't imagine what the town was going to do on a Sunday afternoon that they needed to close the lot for "maintenance". We got back to the camp and while watching the 11pm news figured it out when they started talking about fireworks displays. Goofey sign. You'd think someone would have printed a sign a long time ago as they've been having fireworks at the Meredith docks for ever.

[SAMIAM]

We watched the fireworks in Center Harbor......the town docks and parking lot were full of people enjoying the show.Meredith bay is much larger than CH bay and there should be plenty of room for the fireworks barge with safety in mind.Meredith was packed also,nice to see so many people coming out.

[Heaven]

We watched the fireworks in Center Harbor......the town docks and parking lot were full of people enjoying the show.Meredith bay is much larger than CH bay and there should be plenty of room for the fireworks barge with safety in mind.Meredith was packed also,nice to see so many people coming out.
It is nice to know that the professionals responsible for public safety are on the job and making appropriate decisions for fireworks in every community.

[masssteve]

Was anyone else in the chaos last night leaving Meredith by boat? About 500 boats all leaving at once going as fast as possible within 50 feet of each other throwing huge wakes that couldn't be seen in the darkness. If you didn't see it you wouldn't believe it! I have never seen such ignorance. 2 MP boats sitting there with lights going but thats all that was being done, I guess there wasn't much they could do in the darkness.

[Harborist]

We were directly behind the floating safety markers at the fireworks show. By design, we had put our trailers in the Aubuchon parking lot and waited until given the all-clear by the patrol boats. Approximately 45 minutes after the show ended and all the un-fired fireworks were set off (quite a display in itself), we quietly exited the water at the public ramp. It was well worth the extra time to avoid the mad rush of boats leaving Meredith.

[LIforrelaxin]

Meredith has been using this technique for I don't know how many years and it works quite well. The Traffic is routed up to Main Street which is not a big deal..... and boats are moved out of the area.... It allows for a big fire works show to go off safely and out over the bay, in a way that allows people to see it all the way down the bay itself..... If they moved the barges out away from the docks they would have to move the boat further down the bay.... Because the bottom line is they have to have a safety zone.... they have decided to use the area around the docks as such.....