Government

Park & Recreation Commission by 5-3 Vote Supports Caffeine & Carburetors at Waveny

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Parks officials on Wednesday night voted in favor of allowing the Caffeine & Carburetors gathering of classic and specialty auto enthusiasts at Waveny on two Sundays in 2015. Under an agreement between the Recreation Department and town resident Doug Zumbach, owner of a gourmet coffee shop on Pine Street and one of the popular event’s founders, Caffeiene & Carburetors will be held from 6:30 to 11:30 a.m. on May 10 and Oct. 18. Zumbach on Thursday is to go before an administrative team known as the “Special Events Committee” and Board of Selectmen approval is required for the contract. The commission asked Zumbach to ask exhibitors to register in advance (which they’re doing, 370 had signed up by Thursday, he said), restrict the number of cars in the park (460 exhibiting cars can park in Waveny), require a donation to the New Canaan Food Pantry in lieu of an admission fee “somehow work with the vendors and stress in town to promote them,” Chairman Sally Campbell said at the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center.

Business

SLIDESHOW: 20 Things You Only Know If You Shop and Dine in New Canaan

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New Canaanites have plenty of reasons to shop and dine locally, and those reasons go far beyond the fact that the village center has scores of independent businesspeople—retailers, restaurateurs, service providers—who work here and have had a tough go with the weather these past few weeks. Our owners-on-site specialize in their fields and offer a wide range of expertise. They support most every community event that locals associate with the town—fishing derby, Waveny summer concerts, Santa’s visit, little league, Holiday Stroll, ice cream social, Halloween Parade. It’s hard to find two important community events in a row in New Canaan that aren’t sponsored in some way by Walter Stewart’s, Karl Chevy or both. Because familiarity breeds conversation and rapport, we can come to know our local small business owners and workers better than we may at, say, out-of-town chains. The slideshow above is a testament to that strong connection—click through to learn more about some of those who make up the economic lifeblood of the business district.

Around Town

Park & Rec Hears Proposal for Two Caffeine & Carburetors Events at Waveny

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If approved, twice-yearly Caffeine & Carburetors gatherings at Waveny could require advance registration from participating antique and specialty car owners, as well as a donation of non-perishables to the New Canaan Food Pantry by exhibitors and attendees—a voluntary option last fall. Park & Recreation Commissioner Rick Kilbride said during the group’s regular meeting Wednesday night that making charitable giving a part of Caffeine & Carburetors would be “directionally an extremely appropriate balance for a community like this.”

“I think it could go a really, really long way if everybody participated in that way—in terms of being aware and supporting some of these or one of these specific charitable efforts,” Kilbride said at the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “I don’t know how to make that mandatory, but I think there is an implied obligation for every exhibitor and attendee.”

Caffeine & Carburetors founder Doug Zumbach is seeking approval for four events this year—April 19 and Sept. 13 on Pine and Elm Streets, and May 10 and Oct. 18 at Waveny.

Around Town

Caffeine & Carburetors To Propose Four 2015 Dates, Downtown and at Waveny

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Calling Caffeine & Carburetors a safe, responsibly run gathering that benefits the community, aligns with New Canaan’s recreational principles and has earned support from town government, public safety, arts and business leaders, the event’s creators are proposing four dates for a 2015 season. New Canaanites Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous Pine Street coffee shop where the grassroots event was born, and Peter Bush, as well as Ridgefield’s Todd Brown, are seeking the following Sunday dates and places for this year’s Caffeine & Carburetors:

April 19—Pine and Elm Streets
May 17—Waveny Park (in conjunction with the Carriage Barn Art Center’s exhibition “Va Va Vroom! The Art of the Vehicle”)
Sept. 13—Pine and Elm Streets
Oct. 18—Waveny Park

Noting that Zumbach covers all costs for the event, the proposal says Caffeine & Carburetors “attracts New Canaan families and visitors from neighboring towns who attend to enjoy cars as well as the charm of the town and its restaurants and shops.”

“Caffeine & Carburetors proved itself to be a responsible and caring steward of Waveny Park by all accounts, with officials observing the event as being a ‘success,’ with ‘people enjoying themselves,’ going ‘very well,’ with ‘no issues or problems,’ being ‘orderly,’ and garnering a ‘tremendous donation for the Food Pantry,’ ” the proposal said.

Business

‘Choose To Be Happy’: New Canaan Friends’ Business Poised for Larger Retail Market

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“… honor, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves … but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that through them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.” —from Book 1.7 of Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics,” translated by Sir David Ross

In one way, the rapid rise of the phrase “Choose To Be Happy”—the chord it strikes and, if retail experts are right, its potent marketability—should perhaps come as no surprise to New Canaan residents Matt Konspore and Mike Shullman. On a basic level, the longtime friends became its first adherents and converts—its first “customers.”

A chance remark uttered by a loved one in need nearly two years ago, those four words and the powerful, empowering message they carry took root for the men, and quickly became a kind of byword between Konspore and Shullman at a time when each, in his own way, had been searching for some inspiration. The friends began texting “Choose To Be Happy” to each other and then, on a lark, Konspore ordered up about 10 T-shirts with the phrase printed on the front, had his wife and kids don them and surprised Shullman at his home—one for every member of each family. Immediately, anyone who saw Konspore wearing the T-shirt—say, at Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee on Pine Street, a regular hangout—had a strong, positive reaction, he recalled.