CAPE ELIZABETH – No bids were submitted for a vendor site at Fort Williams Park by the April 25 deadline, making the third time the license has been advertised to no interest.
According to Public Works Director Bob Malley, the Fort Williams Advisory Commission, which oversees the permitting process, will go back to the drawing board at its May 17 meeting.
“I think if we opened up the menu to full choices, I think we might get more interest,” said Malley, on Monday. “We could bid it out again but we keep running up against a brick wall. I think we’re looking ahead to 2014 now.”
Because of construction this season in the parking lot overlooking Ship Cove Beach, the vendor site in question has been moved for the head of that lot to a spot around the bend by a wooden guardrail. At 72 square feet, the spot is the smallest of the four vendor locations permitted at the park since 2011, carrying with it the smallest license fee, $3,000, for the April 1-Oct. 31 season.
However, the menu is also the must restricted – limited to cold beverages, snacks and ice cream – to avoid competition with other vendors.
Those vendors, returning from last season, include the Atlantic Cookie Co., offering lobster rolls, cookies chips and beverages on the north side of Captain Strout Circle at Portland Head Light; Frank Marston, offering hot dogs, kielbasa, chips and beverages on the south side of the circle; and Bite into Maine, offering lobster rolls and other Maine-centric foods on the east end of the parade ground overlooking the Head Light.
Gorgeous Gelato held the dessert site license last year, but chose not to return. At that time the fee was $3,950, but it was lowered to $3,000 on the third go-round this year.
The Gelato vendors, Donato Giovone and Mariagrazia Zanardi, did not return a call by deadline asking why they chose not to return to the park this year.
“It’s not a bad little spot,” said Malley. “I don’t know why nobody seems to want it. We had 13 bidders our first year.”
In addition to the license fee, vendors at Fort Williams also carry a minimum $400,000 insurance policy, naming the town of Cape Elizabeth as a co-insured entity, with coverage good for at least $2 million on bodily injury and property damage.
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