Around Town

Caffeine & Carburetors Clears Final Hurdle for Oct. 19 Event in Waveny

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The popular grassroots gathering of classic and specialty car enthusiasts—an event whose only location in New Canaan, to date, has been the downtown—has cleared its final hurdle for a Sunday, Oct. 19 trial run at Waveny. Launched four years ago out of New Canaan resident Doug Zumbach’s eponymous gourmet coffee shop on Pine Street, Caffeine & Carburetors has grown so large that, logistically, it cannot be held downtown more than twice per year. One long-term vision for the event is a combination of installments downtown and at Waveny—for example, two at each spot between April and November. On Thursday, an administrative team known as the ‘Special Events Committee’—overseen by Tom Stadler of the first selectman’s office and including parks, police, emergency management, health and recreation officials—voted unanimously in favor of the October trial run.

Around Town

New Canaan Marks 9/11 with Solemn Service Honoring Those Lost and All Emergency Responders

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New Canaan’s Kelly Daniel was living in London in September 2001, and on the 11th of that month she sat down to watch TV with her visiting parents after a day of sightseeing in the English capital. For Daniel, now an EMT and president of the New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps, what appeared on the news changed her life. “No more riding the Underground,” Daniel recalled Thursday morning before about 100 fellow residents, town officials and members of the New Canaan Police and Fire Departments as well as Volunteer Ambulance Corps gathered out front of the New Canaan Police Department. “We became vigilant in train stations and avoided large crowds and gatherings. Within our family, we created a code word and a plan of where to meet if a terrorist attack occurred where we were living.

News

New Canaan Police Address Privacy, Community Concerns about New App

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Police are assuring the public that the department’s new app—which allows users to snap and submit photos as “tips” through a smartphone—that the free download won’t be used as a public-facing platform for warring neighbors or spouses. Many residents have connected mobile devices and the app is designed to “open up another avenue for people to contact us,” Capt. Vincent DeMaio said at the Police Commission meeting Wednesday. “It’s just another outreach tool for us, to try and get a little more connected to the community, and in real time,” DeMaio said during the meeting, held in the New Canaan Police Department Training Room. Speaking as a resident rather a selectman, New Canaan’s Beth Jones had raised concerns about the MyPD app, which empowers users to submit tips under categories such as “Traffic Concerns,” “Drug Activity” and “Vandalism/Graffiti” and to snap and/or attach photos from their smartphone camera rolls. “You all know I have the deepest respect for our chief and the commission and I don’t think this was done with anything but good intentions, but I am concerned about the new police app and the way that works anonymously and I’m afraid it could be detrimental to community feelings, if there are people who use it as a vendetta kind of thing or neighbor-against-neighbor and I just want to urge you to be very careful that we don’t do damage to the community,” Jones said.