March 28, 2024

Downtown business owner wants Thunder Nites moved

Downtown business owner and recently elected city council member Jeremy Biondi requested Thunder Nites bike night move from its current location in downtown during Monday’s council meeting. Biondi, owner of Moo’s BBQ, explained to the council the loss he is taking both in sales and from clean up during the monthly event.

“During the past few years, as a business owner on the square, business on bike night has been five to 25 percent lower than normal Friday nights. I have spent additional money on repairs due to the influx on non-paying bike night customers,” Biondi said.

He also said that within the last year, three intoxicated people have vomited inside of his business.

“That takes me an average of four to six hours to clean up that smell. I have to bleach everything,” Biondi said.

Biondi said he is not alone in feeling that the event should relocate, saying he has spoken to other business owners on the square who have much greater losses than what his business has. He suggested moving the event west to the DMACC parking lot as an alternative.

“I feel bike night is great for Newton but the square is not the place to have it,” Biondi said.

Biondi said this issue alone was not a motivating factor for him to run for council. He said he knows a lot of the small business owners have frustration with what is happening in ward one.

As for his timing, Biondi said he wanted to bring it to the council before he was a sitting member and to give both sides of the event.

Thunder Nites president Bob O’Brien was also at the meeting to donate $500 to the Newton Fire Department on behalf of the organization. He said that although he knows the event can be an inconvenience, the benefits far outweighs anything else.

“I am a business owner down on the square also and Friday nights are slower for me also because of the success of Thunder Nites. People are going to Thunder Nites, they are not going to my business. The theater suffers, Jeremy might suffer, but I am trying to look as a business owner to the big picture,” O’Brien said. “The better Newton succeeds and strives and gets bigger and more people move here and businesses come here, my business will be better in the long run and that is what I really feel was designed about Thunder Nites, it was to showcase the downtown square.”

O’Brien explained event organizers had already made concessions to the theater, moving it away from the business toward the west side of the square. He said if it moved away from the downtown, it defeats the purpose of showing off what Newton has to offer.

“Every other community does it around their square, Indianola ... Centerville, Albia, Huxley. They all started after we had started. These other communities have seen the success we are having, and they have decided to start doing it,” O’Brien said.

He said that he does not want to hurt any other business, but that it is five Fridays a year to showcase Newton.

“I think it is very important,” O’Brien said.

Mayor Mike Hansen said that the conversation about the location of Thunder Nites would continue at another meeting.

Just over a week ago, the Jasper County Board of Supervisors approved O’Brien and Thunder Nites to continue using the Jasper County Courthouse lawn at its Nov. 10 meeting. The event is set to take place the second Friday of each month running from May through September.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-891-4687 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com